The EU Blockchain Observatory of the EU predicts that distributed ledger technology will deliver the era of Healthcare 4.0.
The EU Blockchain Observatory has published its fifth report under the title “Blockchain Applications in the Healthcare Sector”. The paper highlights the importance of distributed ledger technology for the European healthcare sector, which is facing a number of challenges on its way to the “Healthcare 4.0” revolution.
There was an announcement of the 66-page document on the EU Blockchain Observatory’s Twitter on April 11. Its authors adopt an optimistic perspective on the implementation of Blockchain technology in the health sector, pointing out its compatibility with the basic principles of “health 4.0”, such as interoperability, virtualization, decentralization, real-time capacity, orientation to service, and modularity. Below are 7 key points from the report.
Old System, New Challenges
As the health sector becomes more knowledge-based, it has become more complex; the abundant variety of tools and methods also makes it prone to errors. Hence, it is essential to have flexible and digitized knowledge, as well as a data management system. This system must provide easy and simple access to patients, whose interest in accessing their own health information is growing rapidly.
In addition, an old problem has not gone away. Data stored in today’s healthcare systems is often isolated. According to the report, a properly designed healthcare application on a distributed ledger can address many of these issues.
Centralization, Well Served
When it comes to healthcare, some centralization is preferable, but efficient centralization is hard to come by. DLT technology thus becomes an almost unavoidable solution. For example, as the report highlights, distributed ledgers could help monitor the use of medical equipment by healthcare facilities and identify device shortages or excesses in different geographic locations, or direct patients to facilities better equipped to treat them.
The Fight against Counterfeiting
Perhaps one of the most recognized advantages of Blockchain technology in relation to health care is its ability to fight counterfeiting – a traditionally very sensitive problem for the sector – by tracking the data of each of the items in the supply chain. The report once again confirms this characteristic, also highlighting the logistical benefits:
“Using Blockchains as a ledger to record provenance, vaccines and other life-saving medicines could be monitored and traced from their origin to their current location, thereby reducing the loss or mistaken qualification of medicines and the risk of counterfeiting.”
In the midst of epidemic outbreaks such as the one humanity has recently experienced, this capability could become crucial for both national and global health systems.
Blockchain Technology Necessary to Ensure Global Reach
Human health is a key concern on which the broadest possible global collaboration can be expected. Blockchain technology also comes in here with its ability to streamline the exchange of information on a large scale.
As in any other high-tech sector, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are the future of healthcare. As the report indicates, “Blockchain mitigates the problems of federated learning and helps achieve fairness, process accountability, and threat mitigation, as well as encouraging collaboration between organizations, serving as a global model from locally trained models, allowing the exchange of models without transferring the dataset”.
Data Security
The report challenges the argument that Blockchain technology does not support the necessary privacy of patient data, due to the immutability of data recorded in distributed ledgers. According to the authors, it is possible to combine the application of Blockchain technology with an off-chain solution:
“To comply with the GDPR, products can use Blockchain in a layer above databases, so it is possible to monitor transactions in the exchange of data and access information, while all personal health data are stored off-chain”.
An Encouraging Conclusion
In general, the authors of the report encourage the European Commission to facilitate future legislation that enables innovation in health information technologies, including Blockchain. They underscore the potential of DLT technology to be not just a technology infrastructure, but also a new way to govern data relationships and a conduit for economic development.
A potential threat to Blockchain-powered innovation could come from lawmakers, who could stall the technology’s rollout by introducing overly conservative regulatory measures. For this reason, the report advocates a periodic review of the regulations in terms of their adaptation to the most recent debates and developments around DLT technology:
“Overseeing decentralized Blockchain technologies requires a fresh perspective and ongoing education of advancements to determine how to integrate this technology into current and future regulatory frameworks.”
The European Blockchain Observatory is a European Fee initiative designed to facilitate Blockchain innovation and spur the dialog on distributed ledger expertise amongst European stakeholders.
By Audy Castaneda
