News article written by Corbett Communications. The statements made or opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of Engineers Australia.
Forget, for a moment, ‘big data’, think ‘long data’ (longitudinal data) and its application for the healthcare sector. How valuable would it be to have the full history of an individual’s health? The concept has been around for some years but it appears interest is building in this area.
The latest blockchain study by the IBM Institute for Business Value has revealed three areas where blockchain technology is in the sights of trailblazers operating in the health and medical sector. Almost a fifth of healthcare executives surveyed (200) across 16 countries expect to have a commercial blockchain solution at scale in 2017. These trailblazers anticipate the most benefits are in time, cost and risk in three areas: clinical trial records, regulatory compliance, and medical/health records. Healthcare institutions are investing heavily in blockchain pilots, with nine out of 10 respondents planning to invest by 2018 across all business areas surveyed, according to IBM.
Data captured on blockchains can be shared in real-time across a scalable group of individuals and institutions. Every event or transaction is time-stamped and becomes part of a long chain, or permanent record, that can’t be tampered with after the fact. What if every vital sign that has been recorded, all of the medicines taken, information associated with every doctor’s visit, illness, operation and more could be efficiently and accurately captured? We could expect the quality and co-ordination of care to rise while the costs and risks would likely fall. Long data is simply the lifetime history of data related to a person, place or thing. And that is precisely what blockchains can do exceedingly well.
Shifting focus from disparate information to lifetime history
On permissionless blockchains, all parties can view all records. On permissioned blockchains, privacy can be maintained by agreement about which parties can view which transactions – and where desired or necessary, mask the identity of the party. In this way, blockchains shift the lens from disparate pieces of information held by a single owner, to the lifetime history of an asset. This holds true whether that asset is a patient’s health record or a bottle of pills as it moves through the supply chain.
From the perspective of blockchain adoption, healthcare organizations are moving fast and appear to have a lead on the financial industry. To IBM’s surprise, 16% of healthcare organisations are trailblazers, ready to commercialise blockchains at scale in 2017, ahead of banks and financial market enterprises (15% and 14% respectively).
Major benefits for the healthcare industry are that blockchains can improve public trust in medicine in that medication can be tracked from manufacture and distribution across the supply chain, ensuring they’re stored and handled properly and that counterfeit drugs don’t enter the market.
The Healthbank blockchain in Switzerland integrates PGHD data with traditional medical information and has the potential to track sleep patterns, glucose and heart rates from wearables and other devices along with information from doctor visits, medical records and equipment. A blockchain-enabled platform can also help patients determine costs before they select providers or undergo treatment. It also facilitates pre-payment options and other patient-centric services. Both offer savings for patients and medical institutions by avoiding unexpected costs and reduction of uncollected payments, respectively.
IBM said the trailblazers in this sector are “setting a fast pace” and charting direction for early advantage. “Mass adopters can look to trailblazers for lessons learned, but they should be prepared to join them in real-world applications as soon as possible”.
Approximately 56%of organisations view immature technology as a barrier while seven out of 10 cited the need for a robust mechanism to establish identity and a high degree of control over access. And 52% survey respondents were concerned regulatory constraints could stall adoption of blockchains. But, blockchains could actually make it easier to enforce regulations as the technology is wide recognised in many industries as an exceptional platform for regulatory compliance, according to IBM.
“They establish a trusted audit trail verifiable in real time. This means blockchains don’t just track compliance; they streamline enforcement … Instead of relying on periodic spot inspections, blockchain-enabled smart contracts can ensure the appropriate parties are notified of non-compliant events as they happen.”
Another advantage is as data and transactions are shifted or linked to blockchains, organisations can track who has shared data and with whom, without revealing the data itself. Read the full report.
Author: Desi Corbett