Graphene Use Cases — Healthcare
A look at how Graphene will open the door to blockchain for global healthcare solving the issues other platforms cannot.
How can Blockchain increase efficiency and security throughout the healthcare system? What obstacles will have to be overcome? What secondary benefits will we see? Reduced costs for businesses and customers, peace of mind for data-conscious patients are just some of the many benefits blockchain has to offer. The goal of this article is to look through the opportunities afforded to medicine by Graphene and Blockchain technology. To see how and where it can be introduced and see what is being done to combat issues such as scalability.
Potential For Blockchain In Healthcare
Blockchain Technology at a fundamental level is perfect for the Healthcare industry. A ledger of data, immutable and encrypted serving as a permanent record, this could be a patient’s medical history, tracking of medical supplies across the supply chain, or data for clinical trials, these are just a few examples of the many areas healthcare can be improved using Blockchain.
Security and data privacy
Is critical when it comes to sensitive information such as medical data. Using blockchain allows for better control of the privacy of your data; the system could be designed so that all personal data or any data that would deanonymize a patient is encrypted, and a certain level of authorization is required to access this. This would allow emergency access to hospitals but would also allow you to hold your private key to be in control of your own data. This means if you wanted to change doctor you could easily allow access to all your medical records or just the records that are appropriate for the care you are receiving.
Managing disease outbreaks
Is important as ever, emphasized by the current situation with Covid-19. Currently, it is very difficult to track and trace a disease spreading. This is partly to do with different countries and healthcare systems using many different stores of data, making it extremely difficult to streamline sharing of data. Having a single blockchain or a group of blockchains that could interact with each other could help organizations like the World Health Organisation gain a stranglehold on an outbreak faster. Having accessible data does not only help with the tracing but also with epidemiological studies which help with the understanding of diseases and the development of treatments.
Genomics
Could hold the key to better human health in the future. It requires the storage of a huge amount of data, its for this reason it is perfectly suited for blockchain. Genomics at its core is the sequencing and mapping of DNA and comparing across subsets of the population. Collating this data on a blockchain would allow ease of access to the data and for comparison of the data and massively reduce the cost of acquisition.
Examples Of Current Uses
Estonia
Became the first government in the world to adapt to using blockchain in their health system. In 2016 the Estonian E-Health Foundation launched a development project aimed at safeguarding patient health records[1]. Digitizing over 95% of their data has allowed for increased efficiency and lower healthcare costs. A major benefit of having personal data on a blockchain is personalized ambulance care with pre-filled health history easily retrievable and made available to the emergency responders[2].
Nebula Genomics
Their mission is to usher in the era of personal genomics by providing access to affordable and secure Whole Genome Sequencing[3]. Nebula is currently using blockchain technology to store genomic data, giving lifetime access to its customers and ensuring its security.
Why is Blockchain adoption slow?
Scalability and volume of transactions
Is an issue that emerging blockchain-based healthcare struggles with due to issues with block size and the sheer number of transactions.
Different data types and multiple data points
Make the sharing of data difficult as each different use-case could require different types of data. This means blockchains are generally going to be designed specifically for the need of each use case, increasing the cost across the entire healthcare system with maintenance costs, development costs, etc… The inability to easily migrate data from one platform to another, e.g. Dental records to your GP is a roadblock to the adoption of blockchain.
Graphene - The Solution
The major issues for the Healthcare industry’s full adoption of blockchain technology are scalability and multiple different data types. With current blockchains unable to adequately handle these problems it’s time for a solution, enter Graphene. Graphene is a new revolutionary blockchain project from the developers at Phore, it is being coded in the modern programming language GO, a high-performance language capable of executing code at a much faster rate than alternatives such as Python or Java. It is being developed with scalability in mind, with transaction speeds of 100,000+ TPS[5} with a theoretical maximum of 28.4 million, making it perfectly suited to high-demand industries. Graphene also features “sharding” technology, allowing the chain to be made up of smaller sub-chains, meaning that not all the ledger has to be stored everywhere, nodes can store only the data pertinent to the shard it’s operating on. This means that different shards can store different data types and can be optimized in such away. This opens up huge possibilities as there is now a way for all the different requirements of the healthcare system in regards to data storage to be met all in one place. It also helps solve the sharing of data as shards will have full interoperability[5] between other relevant shards meaning if a doctor needs dental records or a drug trial needs medication history these can be easily shared with your authorization and the use of smart contracts.
Conclusion
Blockchain clearly has a place in Healthcare on a global scale and with it would come reduced cost for all parties, better health outcomes, and increased efficiency in both the treatment and prevention of a myriad of diseases allowing a world where the patient has access to their records without having to request them from their doctor. Easily transferable, accessible instantly anywhere in the world in case of an emergency, the full history of who has viewed them and when. This will be a huge step forward in healthcare. There are some stumbling blocks currently faced but these are all but ameliorated by Graphene with its superior architecture and revolutionary blockchain technology. dApps built on graphene will effortlessly be able to communicate with each other, share necessary information at incredible speeds across shards and allow for tailored healthcare ultimately making the world a better place.
Stay tuned for more Graphene related updates!
For now — Visit phore.io and getgraphene.io to learn more about Graphene.
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