Blockchain in Smart Healthcare Management
Jayant Barak, Harshwardhan Chaudhary, Rakshit Mangal, Aarti Goel, Deepak Kumar Sharma · 2022
Blockchain is one of the latest and emerging technology advances that facilitate verifiable activities between parties reliably and rapidly. It builds on the idea of a P2P (Peer-To-Peer) network and provides a decentralized, distributed, shared, and immutable database ledger where block data contain a list of all transactions linked by cryptographic hashes. Blockchain eliminates the need for a legitimate central supervisory authority. It uses the state of art consensus and cryptographic algorithms. When new transactions are added to Blockchain, these algorithms are used to verify data's authenticity in each node. Blockchain technology also makes it difficult to directly alter a part of the blockchain as the hashes of subsequent nodes of the altered node must be recomputed. This requires infeasible computational power, making the security fool-proof and increasing exponentially with the chain's size. The application of Blockchain in such a manner makes it easier to verify the legitimacy of transactions and at the same time provide transparency, reliability, and integrity. Blockchain is implemented in a wide range of domains such as Supply chain management (SCM), financial sector, Internet of Things (IoT), Energy Sector, and Healthcare. The rapid growth of digitization in health-care has paced the generation of massive electronic records of patients. This calls for protecting such highly confidential data and ensuring data integrity during transactions between authorized parties. Blockchain in healthcare proposes a mechanism that is transparent and responsible. It can revolutionize healthcare by providing patients' privacy, allowing them to retain ownership of their records, simultaneously giving them easy access to hospitals. In this chapter, applications of Blockchain in a smart healthcare system are explored. Blockchain in Healthcare Systems can be securely implemented in sharing, storing and creating electronic medical records and prescriptions, personalized medicine, remote monitoring, mobile health applications and the Internet of Medical Things (IOMT) vital to patient care and its improved quality. Fraud detection, Insurance claims, medical transactions, checking Drug Counterfeiting, and Tracking, along with other utilities for patients, doctors, and healthcare institutes, can also be achieved using blockchain in healthcare. Other useful applications include Public Health Management and supervising clinical trials. Blockchain can be used to ensure the credibility of information related to medical resources available online. Various Machine Learning (ML) and deep learning algorithms can also be applied to data to improve treatment effectiveness and efficiency.