Medical supply and medication management is plagued by high costs, inefficiencies, shortages, impurities and other quality control issues, said Dr. Ngo. “In the current system, we can’t guarantee quality because to even purchase common supplies, such as syringes, you have to go through a process involving multiple parties.” Current recalls of blood pressure medications, such as losartan and valsartan, due to contamination highlights the difficulty in tracking when lots of medicines were manufactured or where or how they were stored during shipment.
“How many of you have experienced drug shortages at your hospitals?” he asked. “We have no visibility of where supplies are coming from. With blockchain, checklists in a smart contract could check off vital processes before the contract is executed. Some of those questions could include when and where materials were harvested and produced, and how they were transported, such as at the right temperature. We can use blockchain to regulate processes from start to end.”
Possible Pitfalls
Hacking is one possible pitfall for blockchain’s implementation in healthcare, said Dr. Ngo. Stakeholder participation in smart contracts, implementation costs, questions about who should control patient data, government regulations and interoperability are others. Cryptocurrency exchanges have been hacked, but not the actual blockchains—yet.
Another concern is blockchain’s high-energy consumption, Dr. Ngo said. “As blockchain grows bigger, it will require bigger computer systems for those proof-of-work algorithms.” As blockchain innovation swiftly advances, new, secure proof models may speed up data verification and reduce energy needs, he said.
Susan Bernstein is a freelance medical journalist based in Atlanta.
Reference
- Nakamoto S. Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin. 2008.
