Blockchain is getting hotter and hotter, what application scenarios are there in the medical field?

The blockchain as the underlying technology in the field of bitcoin has not been well known to the public until the article "The promise of the blockchain: The trust machine" by The Economist proposes that blockchain technology will be far-reaching at all levels. After the influence of human society, the concept of blockchain began to ignite.

Foreign investment in blockchain began in 2014, and the amount of investment in the second half of 2015 rose very rapidly. Foreign financial institutions and more than 200 investment institutions began to flood into this field.

The most attractive part of the blockchain is that it is very safe and reliable as a decentralized technology. Bitcoin has been in operation for more than seven years now, and the total market value has recently exceeded $10 billion. Numerous hackers around the world have tried to attack Bitcoin, but until today there have been no trading errors.

What is the blockchain?

On November 1, 2008, "Satoshi Nakamoto" published a research report in a secret cryptography discussion group, which first proposed the concept of Bitcoin. In order to support the operation of the Bitcoin system and ensure the authenticity of the data and the consistency of the transmission, he proposed the concept of blockchain.

Blockchain is an important concept of Bitcoin. It is essentially a decentralized database and serves as the underlying technology for Bitcoin. A blockchain is a string of data blocks generated using cryptographic methods. Each block contains information about a bitcoin network transaction for verifying the validity of its information (anti-counterfeiting) and generating the next block.

Blockchain technology has seven characteristics: pure mathematical methods to establish trust relationships, decentralized structure (high operational efficiency, low operating costs), complete and transparent data information (in compliance with laws and easy tracking), distributed accounting and storage (high Fault tolerance), smart contract programmable (no burden of evolutionary models), a global database (highly inclusive business model), anonymity behind the transparent world (protection of privacy).

Due to these characteristics, the core application advantages of blockchain technology are very significant: the decentralized distributed structure can save a lot of intermediary costs in reality; the non-tamperable timestamp feature can solve the problem of data tracking and information security; The trust mechanism can solve the core flaws of today's IoT technology; flexible programmable features can help regulate the existing market order.

The application of blockchain technology and its evolution

In the process of development, the blockchain gradually formed the concept of blockchain 1.0, blockchain 2.0 and blockchain 3.0. Blockchain 1.0 is a virtual currency represented by bitcoin. Blockchain 2.0 can be understood as the use of blockchain technology in other financial sectors.

Blockchain 3.0 extends the field of blockchain application beyond the financial industry, covering all aspects of human social life, realizing the self-certification of information in various social activities, and no longer relying on a third person or institution to gain trust. Or establish credit to achieve information sharing, including in the judicial, medical, logistics and other fields, blockchain technology can solve the trust problem and improve the efficiency of the entire system.

The medical health field is likely to be the second largest application scenario for blockchain technology after the financial sector.

In reality, the leakage of private information of patients sometimes occurs, and the centralized database or file cabinet management of the medical department is no longer the best choice. With the popularity of fingerprint data applications and genetic data detection methods, more and more people are worried that once a leak occurs, it will lead to catastrophic consequences.

Blockchain, due to high redundancy, inability to tamper with, low cost, and the ability to manage multi-signature complex permissions, may be the best solution for data storage that humans can find today. Medical institutions are using the blockchain technology to achieve confidentiality of patient privacy information.

5 major applications of blockchain in the medical field

●Electronic Health Case (EHR)

In medical terms, the most important application of the blockchain is the preservation of personal medical records, which can be understood as electronic medical records on the blockchain. If the medical record is imagined as a book, it is originally in the hands of various hospitals. The patients themselves do not have mastery, so the patient has no way to obtain their medical records and historical conditions, which will cause great trouble for patients to seek medical treatment. Because the doctor can not fully understand your medical history.

But now if you can use blockchain technology to save, you have historical data on personal medical care, medical treatment, planning your own health, there is historical data available, and the true master of this data It is the patient himself, not a hospital or a third party.

●DNA wallet

Gene and medical data can be stored securely using blockchain technology and obtained using a private key, which will form a DNA wallet. This allows health care providers to safely share and count patient data, helping drug companies develop drugs more efficiently. And this model is gradually being established.

● Bitcoin payment

The development of blockchain technology has facilitated bitcoin payments, giving patients more choices for insurance payments. While this also depends on the development of Bitcoin in the market, insurance companies offering this approach have a greater advantage than their competitors. For health insurance companies, blockchain is being established as part of financial services.

● Drug anti-counterfeiting

Similar to the coded anti-counterfeiting technology, for drugs that use blockchain technology for anti-counterfeiting, there is a surface on the surface of the drug packaging box that can be scraped off. Underneath is a special verification label, which is in contrast with the blockchain. Ensure the legality of the drug.

● Protein folding

Because of the rapid protein folding process, Stanford University previously relied on very expensive supercomputers to simulate the protein folding process. This approach is obviously costly and has a single point of failure. By using blockchains, they can choose to use a large distributed network for high-speed operations. This example will greatly appeal to other companies that use expensive supercomputers.

With the development of medical technology, medical data is playing an increasingly important role in the background of patient identity, past medical history, and the record of medical payment.

Medical data may be the most private data of a person, but due to network operation errors or hacking attacks, there have been large-scale leaks of personal privacy data in the past. For example, Anthem has leaked 80 million patient and employee records, UCLA Health. It has leaked 4.5 million patient data.

6 blockchain companies that lay out medical care

●Gem

Gem is a blockchain company with Gem Health. Gem Health is an application development network and provides network infrastructure to healthcare providers. Gem is committed to building a global healthcare complex and providing people with more personal and lower-cost services.

Gem Health is exploring the application of blockchain technology in the following areas: medical data, claims processes, drug supply chains, health networks, general health identities, and genetic data management.

Gem has now invested $7 million to expand its enterprise platform and has worked with multiple stakeholders in the health industry to assess whether blockchain technology is needed.

About Gem Health, Gem's founder and CEOMicah Winkelspecht said: "Blockchain technology will create a new framework for connecting the healthcare industry, connecting all the important data of the medical platform. Blockchain technology ensures data efficiency Sex and safety. For the medical industry, this allows hospitals, insurance companies and laboratories to connect in real time and share information seamlessly and seamlessly without worrying about information being compromised or tampered with."

Gem cites an example, “For example, blockchain can establish an open standard for data logging and identity management. A global healthcare health blockchain can match each patient’s records containing local hospitals and doctors. ID. The generic medical health ID based on blockchain technology can reduce medical errors and protect patient privacy during patient care."

The establishment of Gem Health and its cooperation with Philips have made Gem a step into the health care field. Of course, the blockchain is suitable for a range of areas. However, Gem made such a cooperative choice because it is more than just a simple “plug and play” solution.

Gem is building a network infrastructure that will enable it to adopt more IoT solutions in the healthcare arena in the future.

●HealthNautica&Factom

Factom is a blockchain technology services company that uses blockchain technology to power application development, including auditing systems, medical information records, supply chain management, voting systems, property deeds, legal applications, and financial systems.

Business communities and government agencies can use Factom to simplify the management of data records, document business activities, and address data logging security and regulatory issues. Factom maintains a blockchain data network that can never be changed and is based on timestamp records. The cost and difficulty of conducting independent audits, managing real records, and complying with government regulations are greatly reduced.

Founded in 2000, Healthnautica is headquartered in Chicago and is committed to making communication between hospitals, doctors and patients more fluid. Healthnautica has a customizable, customer-driven cloud software system for doctors to operate and patient procedures.

Healthnautica's eORders products greatly enhance the surgical treatment process and program scheduling process, reducing network latency and overcoming inexplicable data loss issues.

In April 2015, Factom announced a partnership with Healthnautica, a provider of medical records and services solutions, to study the use of blockchain technology to protect medical records and track accounts, and to provide tamper-proof data management for medical record companies.

By using Factom's unchangeable ledgers to validate and time-stamp medical records and contracts, both Healthnautica's customers (including hospitals and doctors) want to increase efficiency and ensure that medical data records are not changed.

Factom's technology first encrypts private medical data and then generates a data fingerprint for time stamping and verification. This approach ensures that actual medical data is not disclosed to third parties, which protects the patient's privacy.

“We are very happy to apply Factom's technology to the healthcare industry. One of the purposes of our software development is to protect the integrity of medical data while protecting patient privacy data.” Healthnautica is a pioneer in digital health records, “We are Research records are very exciting for tamper resistance and preservation and data tracking."

The cooperation between the two companies is the first commercial operation of blockchain technology in the medical and health field. Due to file misalignment and tampering in decentralized systems that lack information interaction, businesses are experimenting with blockchain technology to permanently store files and protect customer records.

“Factom's technology is particularly well-suited for audit trails and customer medical records maintained by Healthnautica,” said Shailesh Bhobe, chairman of Healthnautica.

Blockchain technology is used to process bills, resolve process disputes, and ensure the validity of medical records is the first step in addressing the safety and effectiveness of the healthcare industry. Andrew Nashchuk, a member of Healthnautica's board of directors, said, "The next step is to push insurance companies to use blockchain technology to preserve data so that parties can verify contract effectiveness and increase the efficiency of medical bill payments."

●Tierion&Philips

In March 2016, medical health giant Philips announced the establishment of the Philips Blockchain Laboratory, an emerging technology research and development center for blockchain in Amsterdam.

On the Philips website, it claims to have conducted a six-month exploratory study dedicated to continuing research with joint IT professionals, healthcare professionals and blockchain developers.

Philips indicated that it is looking for collaborators and developers to carry out the project and has provided a form on the website for users to subscribe to the news and indicate their interest in it.

Clearly, Philips has hinted that it believes blockchain technology will be able to be applied to medical health cases.

Arno Laeven, founder of Philips Labs, said: "As an innovative company, you need to continue to explore new technologies and applications that may have impact and value. Our goal is to study whether blockchain technology can develop the healthcare industry. The potential value of the data interaction process."

Philips has announced a joint project with blockchain data record startup Tierion (not specifically disclosed) to study the application of blockchain technology in the healthcare sector.

●BitHealth

BitHealth is a blockchain technology company that applies blockchain technology to medical health data storage and protection. Data privacy, data leakage and data credibility are some of the more important issues in the healthcare industry.

BitHealth is committed to storing and securely delivering healthcare health data globally. BitHealth uses Bitcoin's blockchain technology to store medical health data and recover it from any node in the world. Using blockchain technology, data is spread internationally in the form of peer-to-peer file sharing technology similar to BitTorrent. In the event of a network failure, data can be recovered from the local node.

In addition, this technology can solve problems such as data replication, reduction of insurance costs and other expenses, and decentralization of medical records. Patients can be used to protect personal privacy data, doctors use to retrieve and record medical information, bitcoin is used for payment, and insurance companies use it to retrieve medical history.

●Block Verify

Block Verify is a blockchain-based anti-counterfeiting solution provider that provides services such as authenticity verification to help experts verify the authenticity of their products. Authentic guarantee, blockchain can provide a transparent environment for products without trust support. Product tracking, companies can create their products and monitor the supply chain. A global solution, Block Verify is able to create a trusted global solution to connect the world. Block Verify identifies products such as counterfeits, swaps, stolen goods, and fraudulent transactions. In the pharmaceutical industry, it is possible to ensure that consumers receive genuine products through the supply chain tracking of pharmaceutical companies.

●DNA.Bits

The company uses blockchain cryptography to address tagging, data tracking, health data cross-referencing, big data, genetic data sharing, and related medical data issues in a secure, trusted, and anonymous manner. Future pharmacy, preventive medicine, and pharmacological breakthroughs are closely related to our understanding of the interactions between genes, health, and disease. The differences in genomes and lifestyles can lead to different effects on treatments in individuals.

At present, the concept of blockchain is hot, but its technological development is still in its infancy. Blockchain is the infrastructure of the future digital society and has broad application prospects, but its replacement role for existing medical order rules and information systems is not a one-off event. Blockchain experts, medical experts, and IT experts need to work together to promote the development and application of blockchain technology in the medical industry.