Why healthcare does not need blockchain
Author: David Paré
There has been a lot of hype around blockchain, particularly its potential to secure data access and financial transactions across all industries. But does healthcare need blockchain? Can it solve healthcare challenges related to the fragmentation of information? Today, blockchain is mostly used for secure payments – claims adjudication for health insurer and supply-chain integrity – which have little to do with healthcare delivery.
Why Healthcare Does Not Need Blockchain
Although a viable technology, blockchain does not really solve anything on the provider side of healthcare -– at least not in its current state
The issue for healthcare is that it struggles with a good model for sharing information across the system because data is fragmented across thousands of siloed applications. The challenge is not so much the ability to securely share data across system, but the complexity of reaching all the applications that sit on top of a general practitioner’s desk, at the basement of a hospital pathology department or in a state data warehouse. Blockchain can help make the exchange more secure and untempered through distributed ledgers but it will not accelerate or solve this challenge for healthcare.
A reality-check on the value of blockchain in healthcare
Globally, many healthcare start-ups are betting on blockchain to solve industry challenges. However, if you look closely, many of these companies are using blockchain not only to solve actual problems but as a marketing tool to promote their solution, leveraging the hype around the technology.
How these companies fare remains uncertain. Already, healthcare blockchain flagship company Gem Health, which worked closely with the Philips health blockchain lab, has decided to opt out of healthcare as an industry for their blockchain platform. Its chief communications officer, Chitra Ragavan, said Gem was too early in the healthcare market and while big companies are educating themselves with Gem’s help, the big contracts seem years away. That is the reality-check I am talking about.
Read the full insight to find out more.