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## <center>THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY</center>
The healthcare industry is a collection of the numerous businesses that offer medical goods and services to improve the well-being of patients. This industry is among the largest and the fastest growing, influenced by technological innovations as well as ground breaking medical discoveries.
This industry is made up of different kinds of related medical business and majorly deals with patients. Their dealings with patients centers around diagnosing, treating, prevention, and medical insurance. Thus, they require data recording, payment processing, interoperability, and other computational services.
Adoption of relevant technologies in the activities of this industry will go a long way to resolve some of the challenges currently faced by the industry and improve it's efficiency.
## <center>CHALLENGES OF THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY</center>
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Some of the challenges of the healthcare industry include:
#### LACK OF SATISFACTORY CONSUMER (PATIENT) EXPERIENCE
In so many cases, patients who are the consumers in this industry have dissatisfactory experiences when they deal with businesses in the healthcare industry. There is a lack of personalized experience having remedy akin to a patient's medical history, tendencies and conditions. This begins with a failure to identify patients individually.
#### VERIFIABILITY
The problem of fake drugs just seems impossible to be dealt with. It's seems there's no apparatus efficient enough to bring this crime to book. Verifying the authenticity of drugs and indeed some medical apparatus remains a challenge in the medical industry. Don't be surprised if there are also fake medical practitioners.
#### SCALABILITY ISSUES (ARCHAIC MODEL OF HEALTH CARE)
With the ever increasing population in the world today, the consumers in the health industry also keeps increasing. Unfortunately, the industry has not been able to scale up to the demands of growing population in so many areas including storage of data and modernization of services.
#### UNEVEN DISTRIBUTION OF HEALTHCARE
It's apparent that in the world today, there is a wide gap between the availability of the health industry's to the rich and to the poor, or to developed and undeveloped countries. Healthcare is not evenly distributed amongst everyone owing to different issues like affordability and accessibility (i.e some people can't access the healthcare industry products).
#### INTEROPERABILITY
One of the things we learnt from the pandemic was the importance of the coming together of the different business involved in healthcare and the different healthcare industries coming together to combat health challenges. However, achieving a high level of interoperability in the healthcare industry worldwide is still a challenge.
#### PRIVACY
Privacy of patient's data in the healthcare industry is a challenge. One of the reason this happens is because the patient will have to relay their medical history and current medical state each time the switch doctors or hospitals, thereby duplicating their medical records in the various hospitals. This increases the chances of their data being compromised.
#### FINANCIAL IMPEDANCE
The hindrance to the industry's operations due to a lack of finance is what is referred to here. Payments is sometimes an issue. People die because they don't have the form of payment required by a hospital though they have the money. Also, lack of payment of personnel has also led to industrial actions which impedes in the functioning of this industry.
## <center>BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY</center>
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A blockchain is an immutable and highly secured digital record of transactions which is by design, arranged sequentially in aggregates and distributed among the various computers participating in the blockchain's network.
In blockchain, transaction records are aggregate into storage units called blocks. This blocks are then arranged in sequence from earlier to older. Each block is also connect to the previous block as it contains a piece of data unique to the previous block. This piece of data is called block hash, it is the chain that connects every block to last block created before it.
Each block is therefore connected to the previous and next blocks through the block hash, hence the name 'blockchain'.
Blockchain technology has gained so much reputation as a result of its efficiency in use for payments and smart contracts. It works based on the principle of cryptography as well as consensus mechanisms and supports ecosystems.
## <center>HOW BLOCKCHAIN CAN IMPACT THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY</center>
#### UNIQUE IDENTIFICATION
Using the cryptographic key system, with a private key and a public key, each user can be identified. Drugs and medical apparatus can also be given unique identifiers using cryptographic hash. This can be used to verify real drugs and apparatus.
#### SCALABILITY
Blockchain also support scalability. It can provide an increase in capacity following an increase in adoption. With DAOs, system changing decisions can also be reached via voting, to achieve industry wide upgrades.
#### ECOSYSTEMS
Blockchain technology supports ecosystems which can include hundreds of different dApps running on the blockchain. In this ecosystem, the use of tokens enables interoperability among dApps. This dApps could be businesses in the healthcare industry.
#### EQUALITY
Blockchain levels the playing field. Just like identity can be concealed, the elite or peasant status of the user is also concealed in blockchain. The service is offered according to keys not personalities.
#### UNIVERSAL PAYMENT METHOD
Blockchain provides a universal payment method that can be accessed by everyone with an internet connection and an internet connected device, including the unbanked population. The use of smart contracts can also automate payments to prevent owing of salaries.
## <center>CONCLUSION</center>
The healthcare industry is one of the largest, oldest, fastest growing, and most important industry in the world today. It consists of businesses who offer goods and services relating to treatment, prevention, rehabilitation and optimization of patient's health.
This industry is however bothered with challenges that begs the impact of blockchain. With blockchain technology, privacy and scalability issues can be addressed, as well as issues bothering on a lack of verification and payments. In all, the impact of blockchain will be immense in the healthcare industry.
Thanks for reading.
Cc:
@yohan2on
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