The healthcare industry is being quickly transformed by a range of new technologies, from machine learning to virtual reality. One of the newer technologies receiving a lot of attention lately in the healthcare sector is blockchain.

The term blockchain, in short, is a computing technology that guarantees the accuracy of data in real time. The data is stored into blocks that are shared among many users. The database requires a key to unencrypt the data and change it. Only then can all users see the changes. Additionally, no one is able to make changes to the data on their own personal device; the technology would recognize this particular copy does not agree with the others saved across the network and would consider it invalid.

Recently, Blue Cross Blue Shield created a blockchain consortium to explore the healthcare applications of this technology. HMS Technologies Inc., which provides telehealth and telemedicine services to the US government, partnered with Solve.Care to incorporate the Estonian startup’s blockchain platform into its healthcare information technology programs. These developments have pushed industry experts to revisit how this technology could revolutionize healthcare delivery.

Blockchain ensures accountability and accuracy, both of which have a number of applications to the healthcare industry, including the following:

1. Clinical trial accountability

Medical professionals have long recognized that clinical trials are prone to errors and manipulated data — meaning that if results do not meet projected outcomes, data can be changed manually to meet those expectations. Furthermore, up to half of all clinical trials go unreported if their outcome was not as expected, even though the data collected could still be valuable. Blockchain could create a centralized record of all clinical trials and control who has access to the record so any edits are controlled.

Adopting blockchain in clinical trials could significantly cut down on error while also making it simple for researchers to share data. Because blockchain prevents unsanctioned access, data would be more secure. Such a record would help prevent duplicate trials and facilitate greater communication between scholars to drive more innovation and discovery.

2. Electronic health record interoperability

One of the biggest challenges facing the healthcare industry is the incompatibility of various electronic health records, which impedes and complicates sharing information among providers. Beyond that, health data is not always matched with the correct patients even within the same system.

Blockchain could enable a secure exchange of electronic health information that is verified and seamless. Connecting the fragmented systems that currently exist would significantly boost efficiency in healthcare delivery. Plus, this sort of system would encourage more advances in big data by collecting data guaranteed to be correct. However, considering the technological challenges of implementing such a project — though blockchain does make it more feasible than ever before — this sort of system is probably many years in the future.

3. Drug traceability

Drug traceability has remained a hot topic in health care for a long time, especially considering up to 30 percent of drugs sold in developing countries are fake. The global cost of the fake drug market is enormous.

Some of the most exciting applications of blockchain involve greater accountability among drug manufacturers and the ability to trace the origins of a given drug. When manufacturers use the blockchain record during the production of a drug, it creates a record that allows others to easily trace the time and place of production. Drugs without this information could be identified as counterfeit. Moreover, as every transaction across the life of a given drug will be recorded, detecting anomalies would become much easier and occur much earlier. Companies and consumers would be more empowered to resist conducting business with organizations that improperly make or sell drugs. In addition, such a system could track care systems that use drugs against legal guidelines.

4. Information security

Many clerical issues in medicine are due to patient privacy laws. Naturally, patients should have clear and enforced protections for their private information, but the current systems make it difficult to manage privacy. Blockchain has the ability to create a single centralized system for managing patient data that also secures all information.

Using this system, a unique ID identifies all the data and secures privacy while making it virtually impossible to modify any data without authorization. Such a system would create a completely new healthcare experience that decentralizes patient data, meaning no one healthcare provider is in control of patient information. As necessary, access to the data would be granted to the various providers treating the patient, which would also facilitate the sharing of relevant patient information among them.