Blockchain already earned the buzzword of
the year award.
So, it is high time to address the elephant
in the room.
What the hell is blockchain and how will it impact healthcare?
It is the technology behind the cryptocurrency,
Bitcoin.
Some believe it will be more transformative
than any other technology.
So, how could we explain this fundamental
but really complex technology?
Imagine your grandma knitting a scarf.
She uses one ball of yarn, so each stitch
depends on the one before it.
It is impossible to remove or change parts
of it without leaving a trace.
The blockchain is something similar but in
the digital sphere.
More technically speaking, it’s a system
of complex code for building trust without
any middleman.
It’s to be imagined as a shared book of
records.
And it is designed in such a smart way that
whatever is added to this database, cannot
be changed because any change becomes immediately
evident.
And there is no central authority to decide
what’s right or wrong.
No bank, no regulator, no oversight.
The participants need to signify they accept
a shared consensus.
Why is it a win for healthcare?
As the blocks are impossible to change you
cannot delete or change anything without leaving
a trace.
This is critical in case of health data.
And access to data can easily be linked to
permission.
It could secure health records, clinical trial
records or ensure regulatory compliance.
Estonia already uses blockchain to secure
its citizens’ health records in the cloud.
In pharma, the most obvious use of blockchain
is securing the supply chain.
In many developing countries, counterfeit
drugs comprise between 10 and 30 percent of
the total medicines on sale.
Blockchain offers security through transparency.
Barcode-tagged drugs could be scanned, and
their info entered into secure digital blocks
whenever they change hands.
Authorized parties at the far end of the supply
chain could view this real-time record.
This would make it much more difficult for
criminal networks to sell their counterfeit
drugs on the market.
But this is just the beginning.
Blockchain will soar in the next years, and
we cannot even imagine its many applications
yet.
