While blockchain technology was initially developed to support the exchange of bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, its decentralized, distributed ledger of digital events also offers many appealing possibilities to the healthcare industry. A recent report by Deloitte notes that blockchain has significant potential to improve data interoperability, security and privacy.
The technology is able to address multiple industry pain points, including the need for health information exchanges, varying data standards and inconsistent rules and permissions. The application of blockchain in healthcare is still in early stages of development, but is envisioned to solve the following challenges:
