Talking about the weather is a thing of the past, nowadays people talk about cryptocurrencies at least as often. Some of us have already bought some Bitcoins or Ether (as they are the most popular crypto for now), others participate in crypto staking, more experienced practice trading derivatives. Crypto exchange platforms offer you a wide range of possibilities to involve in the digital economy and make some money with it. However, it’s always important to study the industry first. And this article will help you to learn something new about blockchain technology.

How many use cases of blockchain can you name right now? Let us help you a little. Blockchain technologies can help businesses to: 

• Conduct fast and cheap transactions worldwide
• Store funds and files securely
• Conclude an agreement without notaries and other third parties
• Track the supply chains
• Protect the intellectual property ownership

And many more. Distributed ledgers now serve different spheres, starting from entertainment and government to education and healthcare. Maybe services you’re using in your everyday life are running on blockchain and it doesn’t necessarily mean that they operate with virtual currencies only. For example, did you know that TUI Group, a global tourism company is a pioneer in using blockchain for travel business? It already has a private blockchain to place its contracts and going to create a public peer-to-peer network where customers can engage directly with resorts avoiding middlemen. 

Many experts also believe that distributed ledger technology can significantly improve the global healthcare system. Let’s find out how.

Blockchain use cases in digital health

1. Verifying the authenticity of medicines

We put this point in the first place in the list since the problem of medicine authenticity is a pressing issue in conditions of a global pandemic. The research by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says that manufacture and trafficking in falsified medical products have increased due to the COVID-19. 

How would you feel spending your money on medicines and finding out that they didn’t help you to defeat the illness? The fact is that people around the globe still facing this issue and blockchain could assist us with that.

The decentralized open-source nature of the public blockchains actually guarantees full transparency in delivering different goods. So there can be a ledger for medicines that will mark the point of creation, record every step on the way to the distribution point (pharmacy) until it reaches the final consumer. Before you buy a drug, you could check the date of manufacture and expiry, true ingredients, the country of origin, and many other important details. So you can be sure that this treatment will be helpful and you don’t waste your money, time, and health.

Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to check doctor’s backgrounds and licenses the same way. 

2. Safeguarding the patient data

Keeping your medical data secured is not only a question of doctor-patient confidentiality. Including the fact that clinics have the online version of your medical card where you can plan your visits and pay for them beforehand, hackers can obtain your card and banking data as well. 

Being a transparent network, blockchain is also a highly secured storage system. It uses complicated cryptographical codes that can protect your sensitive medical and personal data from online hacks. Besides, there is no single offline server and this minimizes the possibility of a DDoS attack. Maybe you’ll not believe this, but some people convert their funds in digital assets or start trading Bitcoin just because it’s more secure than keeping your savings in the bank account. 

Additionally, the decentralized nature of blockchain also allows patients and doctors to share information quickly and safely. Say, if you’re in the travel and need medical assistance, you can share your medical card info with a doctor by using your private key. Having this data medical staff will probably help you faster without additional analysis. 

3. Preventing costly mistakes

We have already found out that having your medical card on the secured online storage definitely saves your time. Now let’s talk about how blockchain contributes to the creating of a single healthcare ecosystem and why is this important.

You maybe didn’t think about this before, but miscommunication between medical specialists is another stumbling block in the global healthcare practice. When one doctor needs to check your medical history and consult with another expert to get a complete picture of your condition, it takes time, depletes human resources, and, as a result, postpones your treatment. 

Open access to important medical information could help medical professionals coordinate their efforts more quickly than traditional methods. If we have a medical distributed ledger, then doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, etc. will be able to quickly and efficiently access patient data. Thus, we have the diagnoses done faster and get personalized long-term care plans. 

4. Disease surveillance and prevention

Blockchain technology can make life much easier for international health authorities. For example, WHO (World Health Organization) could have access to surveillance data and receive it in real-time in a secure way. They will be able to identify outbreaks of the disease in the shortest possible time and inform the world community to prevent a pandemic. This kind of screening also includes zoonotic, so they can be detected even before they spread to humans. 

Could blockchain technologies prevent the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, we can not change things that already happened, so this is a matter of discussion. Still, we can see that implementing blockchain into the healthcare systems could make a huge difference. However, we don’t know until we try.

5. Health insurance claims

Ethereum smart contracts make it possible for blockchain to automatically collect records of issuance agreements. What’s more, the strict chronological order of the records makes it almost impossible to change the event that has been fixed in the blockchain. So, once you register the issuance transaction, it is kept on the network forever. Due to this, insurance companies can quickly access your data, review it and provide you with the necessary assistance. Additionally, smart contracts can help detect fraudulent information submitted to a health issuer. 

Would you like your medical data to be stored and secured by the blockchain? If you still have some doubts, we’re welcome you to try some benefits of the decentralized economy. Get the crypto trading app to your smartphone and see how easily you can buy, sell and transfer cryptocurrencies. We bet you’ll enjoy it.