Last name 1
Blockchain Technology Course Code: The Application of Blockchain in the Healthcare
Industry - A Comprehensive Report
Introduction
Technology has come to revolutionise the way of doing things. Blockchain is one of
these technologies. Blockchain technology has grown in popularity over the past decade,
attracting attention from various industries, including energy, government, health, finance, etc. It
was first introduced in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto. It refers to “a decentralised, distributed,
immutable ledger that’s used to securely record transactions across multiple computers in a
peer-to-peer network without the involvement of a third party (Gamage, Weerasinghe and Dias,
2020, 2).” This report provides a comprehensive summary of blockchain applications in
healthcare organisations. The concept of blockchain in the field of healthcare is evolving at a
high rate. Healthcare can use blockchain to monitor patients remotely, promote the supply chain
of drugs, share electronic medical records, etc. The report will cover five parts regarding the use
of blockchain technology in the healthcare domain; “contextualisation of the problem space,
proposed approach, application of the approach, analysis and judgement, and last lesson
learned and appraisal of the process.”
Contextualisation of the Problem Space
Blockchain has presented its credibility in providing security in data sharing and secure
accessibility between multiple parties. The phrase “blockchain” means a shared, immutable
ledger that contains a sequence of transactions, in which every transaction contains one block
and is held together by cryptographic keys, also known as “hashes” (Berryhill, Bourgery and
Hanson, 2018, 24). The signatures or keys are recorded in shared ledgers and interconnected via
, Last name 2
a network of processes or nodes. Each node keeps a copy of the whole chain, which is
synchronised and updated regularly. Following the NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology), blockchain has many advantages, making it a priority in many sectors (Gupta
Gourisetti, Mylrea, and Patangia, 2019, 169). These advantages include the decentralised nature,
tamper-resistant nature, and the complexity of changing a published transaction afterward inside
the client community that exchanges the ledger—a technology known as Digital Ledger
Technology (DLT).
Healthcare has shown its dedication to implementing blockchain since it has been a
solution to many challenges facing the fields, such as inconsistency and insecurity of medical
data. More than 40 per cent of medical data records are filled with misleading information or
errors. Also, an average of $408 is incurred to recover from data breaches for every healthcare
record compromised (Hemann, 2021, 5). However, blockchain has been seen to be a perfect
solution to all these issues. In 2006, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
designed an innovation innitiative for seeking white papers on blockchain’s possible application
in healthcare (Sookhak et al., 2021, 178). As a result, a few blockchain-based healthcare
applications have been brought about. Blockchain application in the healthcare sector has been
seen in authentication and identity verification of participants, security in network infrastructure
at all levels, and access authorisation to electronic health information using consistent patterns.
, Last name 3
Blockchain Technology Course Code: The Application of Blockchain in the Healthcare
Industry - A Comprehensive Report
Introduction
Technology has come to revolutionise the way of doing things. Blockchain is one of
these technologies. Blockchain technology has grown in popularity over the past decade,
attracting attention from various industries, including energy, government, health, finance, etc. It
was first introduced in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto. It refers to “a decentralised, distributed,
immutable ledger that’s used to securely record transactions across multiple computers in a
peer-to-peer network without the involvement of a third party (Gamage, Weerasinghe and Dias,
2020, 2).” This report provides a comprehensive summary of blockchain applications in
healthcare organisations. The concept of blockchain in the field of healthcare is evolving at a
high rate. Healthcare can use blockchain to monitor patients remotely, promote the supply chain
of drugs, share electronic medical records, etc. The report will cover five parts regarding the use
of blockchain technology in the healthcare domain; “contextualisation of the problem space,
proposed approach, application of the approach, analysis and judgement, and last lesson
learned and appraisal of the process.”
Contextualisation of the Problem Space
Blockchain has presented its credibility in providing security in data sharing and secure
accessibility between multiple parties. The phrase “blockchain” means a shared, immutable
ledger that contains a sequence of transactions, in which every transaction contains one block
and is held together by cryptographic keys, also known as “hashes” (Berryhill, Bourgery and
Hanson, 2018, 24). The signatures or keys are recorded in shared ledgers and interconnected via
, Last name 2
a network of processes or nodes. Each node keeps a copy of the whole chain, which is
synchronised and updated regularly. Following the NIST (National Institute of Standards and
Technology), blockchain has many advantages, making it a priority in many sectors (Gupta
Gourisetti, Mylrea, and Patangia, 2019, 169). These advantages include the decentralised nature,
tamper-resistant nature, and the complexity of changing a published transaction afterward inside
the client community that exchanges the ledger—a technology known as Digital Ledger
Technology (DLT).
Healthcare has shown its dedication to implementing blockchain since it has been a
solution to many challenges facing the fields, such as inconsistency and insecurity of medical
data. More than 40 per cent of medical data records are filled with misleading information or
errors. Also, an average of $408 is incurred to recover from data breaches for every healthcare
record compromised (Hemann, 2021, 5). However, blockchain has been seen to be a perfect
solution to all these issues. In 2006, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
designed an innovation innitiative for seeking white papers on blockchain’s possible application
in healthcare (Sookhak et al., 2021, 178). As a result, a few blockchain-based healthcare
applications have been brought about. Blockchain application in the healthcare sector has been
seen in authentication and identity verification of participants, security in network infrastructure
at all levels, and access authorisation to electronic health information using consistent patterns.
, Last name 3
