forbes.com (08.05.2017) Blockchain technology is making headlines everywhere. If you have recently attended any tech events it is highly likely that you came out of them having heard just that bit more about it. Everybody is talking about blockchain--from the President of the United States to the Nigerian government.
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Despite all the hype, for many people (across different industries) the blockchain concept still seems difficult to grasp, which makes it one of the most misunderstood technologies of 2017.
This confusion around blockchain can be attributed both to its contentious origin (Satoshi Nakamoto, the “unknown” who designed Bitcoin and its original reference implementation) and equally to the absence of any standard definition of blockchain technology.
Nevertheless, the perceived (if not yet fully understood) disruptive nature of blockchain and its possible impact on businesses across industries makes it crucial first to understand blockchain and then to distinguish the hype from the reality. Today we are going to try to unpack blockchain at a basic level and understand its implications for the healthcare industry.
- Clinical Health Data Exchange and Interoperability. The recent collaboration between Guardtime, the data-centric security company, and the Estonian eHealth Foundation to secure the health records of one million Estonian citizens using its proprietary Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI) is a classic example of blockchain technology.
- Claims Adjudication and Billing Management. Gem Health, a provider of blockchain application platforms for enterprises, has collaborated with Capital One to develop blockchain-based healthcare claims management solutions.
- Cyber Security and Healthcare IoT. Companies such as Telstra (user biometrics and smart homes), IBM (cognitive Internet of Things) and Tierion (industrial medical device preventive maintenance) are actively working around these use cases.