Blockchain Application in Healthcare
Onimisi Ukanah, Charlie Obimbo · 2020
Healthcare data can be created, copied and modified faster than ever before. Data is the fuel behind more efficient care. Unfortunately, healthcare today suffers from compartmentalized and fragmented data, delayed communications, and disparate workflow tools caused by the lack of interoperability. Blockchain technology maybe the vehicle to solve these problems, as besides it possesses key properties, such as immutability, decentralization, and transparency, which potentially address pressing issues in healthcare, such as incomplete records at point of care and difficult access to patients' own health information. An efficient and effective healthcare system should be interoperable, allowing software apps and technology platforms to communicate securely and seamlessly, exchange data, and use the exchanged data across health organizations and app vendors. In this paper, we address the aspect of storage of Electronic Medical Records using smart contracts. The implementation is done using Ethereum's blockchain network to solve problems faced by centralized platforms. The results were encouraging, and the implementation was also successful in reducing storage costs by storing large files off-chain (IPFS).