The Business APAC Healthcare Elites of 2019​ Final File_Healthcare Elites | Page 23

they have as well as keeps everyone informed.
Similarly, the use of cryptocurrencies as payments
in place of cash or fiat money will stop scams
related to money. Apart from that, blockchain-
powered and secured bill processing automation
will remove the third parties from the chain and
decrease the overall administrative costs.
3. Keeping identity secret from the third
party
Patient data privacy is strictly regulated by the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act (HIPAA) and requires Protected Health
Information (PHI) to be totally secure. However, a
problem occurs when a patient actually needs to
share their information with someone, other than the
primary care physician. To solve this issue, the
blockchain system in place for patient data
management would create a hash for individual
patient health information blocks and a collective
system would constitute a patient ID on a theoretical
basis. Furthermore, it allows patients to reveal they’re
necessary data to third parties while keeping their
identity secret. The time limit and access permissions
for data sharing with third parties could also be
controlled by the patients.
4. Reducing the production of faked drugs
In particular, developing countries have a serious
problem identifying and eliminating a widespread
mixture of counterfeit drugs in their healthcare
ecosystem. Drug counterfeiting causes the deaths
of hundreds of people. The problem of fake and
counterfeit drugs within the supply chain costs
the healthcare industry billions. Therefore,
the answer is blockchain-based supply chain.
A drug supply chain can use a blockchain-
based trusted network which will
comprise all the required entities like
the manufacturer, distributors, and
pharmacist or hospital. When drug
bottles are labeled with serial
numbers and packages
containing these serial
numbers are scanned and
recorded on the
blockchain, a highly
secured
blockchain-
businessapac.com
23
March 2019