In the continuing push for affordable health care, one of the biggest stumbling blocks is still the confused and error-filled manner in which electronic data is shared among doctors, insurers, hospitals and patients. One solution, writes The Wall Street Journal (May 29, 2018), could be blockchain technology.
In the current tangle of incompatible records systems that typifies U.S. health care, incorrect information can creep in when patient data gets re-entered multiple times by doctors’ offices, insurers and hospital staff. Big errors can seriously affect the quality of care that patients receive, small discrepancies can result in wrongful denials of insurance coverage, and errors of all types add to the system’s cost.
Blockchain, by contrast, puts patients, insurers and providers all on the same page. With a low-cost and decentralized-ledger approach to managing information, blockchain technology gives all of the parties in the provision of health care simultaneous access to a single body of strongly encrypted data, and it creates an audit trail each time data is changed, helping to ensure the integrity and authenticity of the information.
Eventually, blockchain could be used to provide a secure and accurate medical history for every individual patient. MedRec, a blockchain system being developed at MIT, is designed for patients to be able to manage their own records and give permission to different doctors or providers to access and update the records. And Change Healthcare, a health network of 800,000 physicians, 117,000 dentists and 60,000 pharmacies, introduced a blockchain system this year for processing insurance claims. The shared ledger of encrypted data represents a “single source of truth” for those providers.
Classroom discussion questions:
- Explain the concept of blockchain.
- How can blockchain work in the supply chain?