Health Science Students to Explore Blockchain

As the world continues to shift from analogue to digital, people have started to go for new innovations that are still unexploited. Now, the health science students from the University of New Haven are trying to explore blockchain technology to solve industry problems. Scientists are working with a giant healthcare firm to test how distributed ledger technology (DLT) could play a significant role to address challenges that are currently hitting the healthcare sector.

Academic Institutions Should Teach Blockchain

What is surprising, the health science students in question began their course totally blank about blockchain technology and its potential uses such as increasing the efficiency, transparency and security of information sharing especially in the healthcare sector. But towards the completion of their course, they were applauding a leading healthcare firm SimplyVital Health for its implementation and use of disruptive novelties including DLT and blockchain to tackle a wide range of challenges hindering the healthcare sector.

Science students conducted a successful presentation of this blockchain project to faculty top leaders comprising of the dean of the School of Health Sciences. According to health science students’ supervisor Prof. Karl Minges, this fintech project enlightened his students that he instructs with important opportunities to implement the knowledge, expertise and skills they acquired in everyday situation.

Some of the things that were researched about include how best can the DLT make the healthcare arrangement more patient-centric, how patients’ information can be safely stored, how health doctors can quickly access the patient’s information in a more secure and transparent way, and many more.

Use Cases for Blockchain in Healthcare Industry

Currently, there are 3 major use cases for blockchain in healthcare: drug traceability – to prevent counterfeit drugs from mixing with original pharmaceutical drugs; clinical trials - to explore the tolerance and efficiency of a product on a group of sick people with the intention of verifying or invalidating hypotheses; and patient data management - access to comprehensive medical records is vital so as to adjust to the treatment and offer personalized care.

Other benefits of the medical healthcare blockchain include: As the technology is Immutable and traceable, sick people can effortlessly send records to anybody minus the fear of information corruption or tampering; Also, a medical record which has been produced and added to the blockchain network will be totally protected and secure; The sick person get to know how their medical information gets used and shared by the medical organizations like hospitals, clinics, etc.; The sick person can also be motivated to for decent behavior through a reward system; and Pharma firms want to have a very secure supply chain owing to the type of product they carry.