Top Healthcare Blockchain Business Ideas

Blockchain technology has introduced a spur of decentralization and qualitative growth across various industry verticals. Healthcare is no exception to this. As a result, some excellent blockchain business ideas are erupting every now and then.

Going down the memory lane when computer technology met the healthcare sector, humankind expected a transformation in terms of quality healthcare services and more value for patient care. Fast forward to now, blockchain business ideas in healthcare seem to be the saviors. While experts made a few developments back then, patient services couldn’t improve to the expected levels due to a few bumps in the journey. Here are the key advantages of Blockchain technology that will enable you to understand why some blockchain business ideas may become the missing pieces of the puzzle for optimizing the healthcare industry.

Can Blockchain Technology Improve The Healthcare Sector?

Blockchain technology can efficiently deal with primary difficulties of the healthcare sector, such as data tamper-proofing and secure information transmission. Here, blockchain business ideas can be useful. Here’s how:

• The two categories of blockchain are peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and public blockchains. As the name suggests, public networks are open where anyone can join, whereas to join a private network, you can only have access through permission.
• This network’s computers are referred to as “Nodes,” and in a public blockchain network, each node has an equal amount of power. As a result, such networks do not require management administration from a central server.
• Every node in a public blockchain also has access to all the transaction data. Each node functions practically as an entire ledger. Blockchain is known as “Distributed Ledger Technology” for this reason.
• If hackers take down one server, they won’t bring down the entire network because other servers will continue to run it. As a result, there are fewer possibilities that hackers will try to attack the network. As the network may potentially keep patient information safe, this point is worth considering while exploring blockchain business ideas for healthcare.
• Along with these essential security components, blockchain also employs consensus techniques, cryptographic hash functions, digital signatures, and data encryption. These support minimizing the chances of data alteration.
• Furthermore, smart contracts, the independent pieces of code, are used on blockchain networks like Ethereum, NEO, and others. They transfer cryptographic assets based on predetermined criteria and are tamper-proof. While their implementation is irrevocable, they are transparent. Thus, smart contracts can significantly enhance the administration and management of contracts.

Observing these advantages of blockchain technology, we can say that blockchain ideas for businesses that encourage tamper-proofing and security may potentially improve healthcare sector operations. With this said, let us look at some transformational blockchain business ideas for the healthcare industry.

The Best Blockchain Business Ideas For Healthcare

There are plenty of blockchain startup ideas you can use as your reference point for business development in the competitive field of healthcare. But, we have diligently selected the best ones for you to help your research. Below given are blockchain medical ideas that have the transformational potential for healthcare service delivery.

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1. Utilize blockchain for ‘Remote Patient Monitoring’ (RMP)

First among the best blockchain business ideas is using the technology for Remote Patient Monitoring. RMP employs IoT-capable gadgets, such as wearables. These gadgets gather patient health information and stream it to medical professionals. Therefore, RMP can provide a number of advantages, such as:

• Patient health can be tracked more successfully with the use of proactive health data monitoring.
• Since IoT-enabled devices automatically feed the data, patients do not need to give their health status to healthcare practitioners manually.
• RPM empowers people to take control of their health because they have access to their own health information.

However, the challenge with RMP is that it heavily relies on IoT, so managing data integrity becomes a problem. As all communications by IoT-enabled devices happen over the Internet, secure communication is hard to achieve. Cornell University researchers administered a blockchain solution catered to RMP and found that the advantages of employing blockchain for RMP outweigh the challenges. The following conclusions of the study tell the revolutionizing blockchain benefits for RMP-

• The team utilized two blockchains in their “Proof of Concept” (PoC).
• A private blockchain is one type. As joining requires authorization, blockchain users can access control for sensitive data.
• A private blockchain is the best option because RMP devices acquire PHI, which needs protection.
• On this private blockchain, smart contracts examine patient health information.
• Other smart contracts produce warnings in response to predetermined thresholds.
• These notifications are then made available to healthcare service providers via a public blockchain.

2. Transforming “Electronic Medical Record” (EMR) systems through blockchain

You can use EMR as a potential blockchain business idea to start your healthcare investment as these can immensely improve medical delivery systems. Here are the following methods-

• Doctors and medical professionals can collect patients’ medical data in an electronic format. It is much more convenient than managing paper-based patient records.
• For the same reason given above, the collection and management of medical records of a patient with long treatment history also become seamless.
• Healthcare providers can easily access EMRs to provide patient care effectively.

There are a few downsides of EMR that are drawing back its adoption for medical professionals. These problems are as follows:

Despite these issues, this is how you can use EMR as your blockchain business idea in healthcare-

• Both private and public blockchain can be considered by healthcare professionals or organizations.
• Seeking an enterprise blockchain is also viable.
• Cryptographic tokens can be used to facilitate user access to the network.
• Using crypto-based apps, such as Ethereum apps, allow smooth access to authorized stakeholders like patients and healthcare providers.

3. You can manage and regulate health insurance records and reporting with blockchain.

Healthcare has become an expensive segment of life for people. Even with the rising costs, healthcare insurance remains an integral part of this domain. This is where great blockchain business ideas for healthcare insurance policies come in. Though it has become common, healthcare insurance remains a complex area mainly due to these given-below reasons.

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• Inherently, healthcare insurance focuses on a large number of stakeholders, including employers, healthcare professionals, health insurance companies, and other monitoring authorities. Confused about why the patient is not added to the list? Well, there is the complexity. Health insurance policies do not actually revolve around the main factor, i.e., the patient.
• Such challenges invariably create disparate application systems that are not efficiently compatible.
• Different application systems have different information that ultimately piles up for inefficiencies.

Here, blockchain can come in as a savior with its distributed ledger, transparency, and tamper-proof records properties. In addition, it will also enable the stakeholders to collect real-time accessibility of information and improve the overall functioning of healthcare insurance systems.

4. Improve drug supply-chain management and security.

Every industry is facing the complex challenges of supply chain management due to rising globalization. The healthcare sector is no exception to this challenge. Patients have multiple doubts about their prescriptive medicines. Such as, are prescription drug retailers purchasing medicines from reliable suppliers?, Do drug manufacturers follow the authorized quality processes?

With such doubts persisting in patients’ minds that do not have satisfactory answers, we can say that the pharmaceutical supply chain is certainly one of the most complex systems in the healthcare industry. Thus, a potential use case of blockchain technology is supply chain assurance. Here are some blockchain business ideas for how the pharma supply chain could work-

• The decentralized ledger system of blockchain can store the details of every drug prescription.
• One can use blockchain to provide information mentioning each stage of development of the medicine, i.e., from the lab to the last sales transaction.
• As the distributed ledger system is immutable, blockchain can enable the entire lifecycle of the medicine to become fully transparent.

5. Genomics has a high potential with blockchain technology

Another blockchain business idea for the healthcare sector is utilizing the power of genomics. Since genomics can spur fresh discoveries in pharmaceutical research, it has a huge potential to advance healthcare. However, to reach its potential, the listed below reasons hold it back:

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• A human genome’s processing used to be exceedingly expensive. For instance, in 2001, the cost was $1 billion! But, interestingly, now the technology has improved and reduced the costs to $1,000!
• Multiple things contribute to this high price. First, the available technology is pricy. There is a huge amount of data needed for genetic research. That is difficult to locate. Moreover, it demands a lot of DNA test results, yet the average person sees no benefits from this test. Typically, healthcare providers sell this data to large pharmaceutical companies while offering no benefit to customers.
• The data that is provided is very fragmented.
• Additionally, obtaining a large amount of genetic testing data is difficult.

The blockchain business idea for this segment is to create a marketplace for those who want to sell their DNA testing data. In return, they can earn cryptographic tokens as rewards. In addition, blockchain smart contracts can secure the data against unauthorized access, and the blockchain can monitor the confidentiality of data.

The Bottom Line

Most of the blockchain business ideas for healthcare we looked at certainly have significant potential. Basically, a blockchain comprises of a database system that permits the immutability of documents and security benefits, including decentralized storage. As a result, many healthcare organizations have already integrated blockchain to address issues that current databases cannot. However, putting any of these concepts into practice is a difficult process. Blockchain development involves a lot of knowledge and preparation, so you definitely need professional expertise to develop a blockchain-based business idea for healthcare.