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Essay / Blockchain Innovation in Healthcare and Life Sciences
“Blockchain is the most consequential technology since the Internet. The Internet is programmable information. Blockchain is a programmable scarcity. —Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of 21.coSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayBlockchain is a type of data structure used to create a digital ledger of transactions and share it across a distributed network of computers . The delivery network may include smartphones, tablets, cloud-based resources, or on-premises compute nodes. Imagine a universal digital ledger that helps shape how you transact with other people or entities, all securely and anonymously. One of the major advances in the ledger is the idea of “smart contracts,” which “provide greater security than traditional contract law and reduce other transaction costs associated with procurement.” Technologists and healthcare professionals around the world are looking to blockchain technology as a way to streamline the sharing of medical records securely, protect sensitive data from hackers, and give patients more control over their information. Blockchain has the potential to propel innovation in preventive care and community healthcare models. The ability of a distributed ledger technology to ensure data integrity when shared between parties can ensure collaboration between growing trends in healthcare; which are essential to improving health in communities around the world. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. Get a Personalized Trial Here are some of the other ways blockchain could benefit healthcare: Clinical data sharing. Advance directives, genetic studies, allergies, problem lists, imaging studies, and pathology reports are just some of the data elements that could be released. Alternatively, instead of storing actual patient data, blockchain could be used to store access controls – for example, who a patient has authorized to see their health data – even if the clinical data itself is stored by the EHR. Public health. A shared, immutable stream of anonymized patient information could more easily identify pandemics, independent of which government agencies currently aggregate this data – for example, a flu reporting system. Research and clinical trials. Dissemination of patient consent or trial results could promote data sharing, audit trials and clinical safety analyses. Administrative and financial information. Insurance eligibility and claims processing workflows could benefit from blockchain and reduce transaction costs. Patient and provider identity. National (or international) identities of patients or providers could be secured in the blockchain, providing the basis for health data portability and security. Personal health devices, wearables, Internet of Things (IOT) devices, and patient-reported outcomes are just a few examples of patient-generated data that could leverage blockchain for security and sharing..