Category Archive

Introduction 

There’s no bigger business than the business of saving lives. And there hasn’t been a more pertinent time for businesses in healthcare to think out of the box to find solutions to pressing needs. As Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported, in 2012, about half of all adults, nearly 117 million people, worldwide, had chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, obesity and arthritis. The need is to prioritize prevention as much as finding cures for diseases as this is the only way to check their rampant spread.
In a span of ten years, there has been a tremendous generation of data and the use of technology to analyze the same. This has given birth to a new industry. The industry of Big Data. By using Big Data effectively, healthcare businesses have found new ways of reducing the number of preventable deaths, curing disease and improving the quality of life, while cutting their business overheads and increasing profitability. Treatment modalities have transformed and that has a lot to do with the way healthcare professionals are using Big Data to make informed decisions about patient care. Now, the impetus is on understanding patient information better and quicker, to predict the onset of illnesses and to cure them in the early stages. 

The Inception 

One of the most tangible ways data has changed healthcare is in the method used to collect it. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are now a reality across most hospitals in the U.S. at a staggering 94% adoption rate and by this year, a centralized European Health Record system is likely to come into being. EHRs have eliminated the need for paperwork, reduced data duplicity and also allowed for better treatment tracking. Today, the novelty of EHRs has worn off as technology has gotten avant-garde. 

Telemedicine has been around for no less than four decades but mobile technology has changed the face of it. With video conference tools and wireless devices, remote yet personalized treatment has been made possible and this has significantly cut costs in healthcare. Patients save money on repeat visits to hospitals and doctors save on valuable time as remote treatment has made some facets of medical treatment location agnostic. Smart wearables have also made their way into the daily life of the common man and it isn’t uncommon for friends and peers to exchange personal data that is collected by means of these devices. Industry experts predict that there will soon come a time when doctors will rely on Big Data as step one in charting treatment plans. 

The very fact that some companies are looking to collect and analyze an intangible variable such as stress is a testament to difference Big Data can make. The adoption of preventive analysis, as opposed to traditional statistical analysis, is a clear sign of things to come. Prediction modeling, the basis of preventive analysis, creates a prediction algorithm or profile of an individual using techniques such as artificial intelligence to analyze data. This can lead to better and higher individual outcomes, improve the accuracy of predictive research, and lead to pharmaceuticals creating more effective drugs. 

5 ways Big Data is Changing Healthcare 

The healthcare industry is booming faster and the need to handle patient care and innovate drugs has risen synonymously. With the rise in such needs, industry adopts new technologies. One such significant shift in the future is the use of Big Data and analytics in the healthcare sector. 

Health monitoring 

Continuous body vital monitoring along with sensor data collection would allow healthcare providers to keep patients out of the hospital because they can detect possible health problems and provide treatment before the condition gets worse. 

Reduced expenses 

Insurance companies can save money by endorsing wearables and fitness trackers to ensure patients don’t waste time in hospital. This will save patient waiting times because the hospital already has enough staff and beds available as per the study. Predictive analytics also helps minimize costs by reducing hospital readmissions. 

Assisting high-risk patients 

Once all medical records are digitized, the ideal data can be obtained to recognize other patients’ patterns. This may consistently recognize patients entering hospital and recognize their medical conditions. This awareness can help improve care for these patients and provide insight into corrective steps to minimize repeated visits. 

Preventing human errors 

It has been noted several times that the doctors either administer a wrong drug or wrongly assign another medication. These errors may usually be minimized because Big Data can be used to evaluate consumer data and prescription medication. 

Healthcare developments 

Big Data will significantly support science and technology advancement. Artificial Intelligence, like IBM’s Watson, can be used to surf through multiple data in seconds to find solutions for different diseases 

The common thread that runs through the applications of Big Data is the ability to provide real-time analysis of data. When it comes to making a decision on health, time is definitely of the essence and further use of Big Data will help professionals and patients take quick calls without compromising on accuracy. 

Conclusion 

While most of the Big Data generated is not currently completely used due to limitations of the toolset and funds, it is certainly the future. Invest in the future and using Big Data Analytics as part of an emerging Healthcare Industry by finding support from an established company like ours. 

Within the Healthcare ecosystem, there are several touch points between patients’ and healthcare systems (Hospitals, Clinics, Labs, Doctors and more) where Blockchain can be implemented.

Our team was exploring blockchain for a healthcare technology provider who is innovating in the patient’s data storage space. Our client was more than happy to explore Blockchain to see how it can help, differentiate and build capabilities.

Foundation of a new healthcare IT system lies in the creation of a platform that allows interoperability, safe storage of patient data, and efficient exchange of information securely between stakeholders. Privacy of data and user-based access control is critical, this can be achieved using blockchain.

Medical data generated from a doctor’s examination note or patients wearable device or when the patient uploads his existing medical records, a digital signature is created for verification. This data is then encrypted and sent to the cloud (encrypted) storage, with a unique pointer being created in the blockchain along with the user’s unique ID.

When a patient’s data is requested, the unique pointer on the blockchain is used to retrieve the data from the encrypted storage. It is decrypted and displays on the relevant devices. The patient will be notified every time data is added (to the blockchain), or when a request to access data is received. Users can manage access on multiple levels of their data using their web or mobile apps. Private keys can be stored on patient’s behalf or it can be put on offline storage at the patient’s convenience.

The data of a patient is further split as private and public data to enable a wider visibility to other parties in the consortium like governments and Insurers. The public data in Client’s Datasets can be used by the government and other insurance providers to analyze and gain insights from the market.

Our client is a decentralized platform that enables secure, fast and transparent exchange and usage of medical data. We introduced utilization of blockchain technology to store patient health records and maintain a single version of the patient’s true data. It will enable different healthcare agents such as doctors, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacists, insurers, and government to request permission to access and interact with medical records. Each interaction is auditable, transparent, and secure and will be recorded as a transaction on client’s distributed ledger. Moreover, no privacy is lost in this process as every data transfer happens only with the consensus of the patient; It is built on the permission-based Hyperledger Fabric architecture which allows varying access levels; patients control who can view their records, how much they see and for what length of time.

Why did we build it on blockchain?

The healthcare industry has more data breaches than any other sector and 95% of medical institutions polled said they had been victims of a cyber attack. Medical records are being stolen and sold on darknet markets where they are 10 times more expensive than credit card data.

Sometimes the threat to your privacy isn’t outside the healthcare system, but from within it. Over a million patients’ health records attending London hospitals run by the NHS Royal Free Trust are being analyzed and mined by Google with little transparency and no option for withdrawal.

Whether the threat is from the inside or the outside, it is clear that in increasingly digitized and widespread healthcare systems there are more opportunities than ever for your records to be accessed without your permission. The patient has little autonomy to defend themselves against this and legacy healthcare systems are not properly prepared to protect patients’ data.

Advantages:

• Data can only be accessed by the patient’s private key, even if the database is hacked, the data will be unreadable.
• A patient will have full control over accessing their healthcare data. The patient will control who sees their data and what they see (Public data is visible to everyone; private data is a restricted data)
• Instantaneous transfer of medical data. Every member in the distributed network of the healthcare blockchain would have the same data of the patient’s record.

Learning curve involves:

• Patients will have to learn how to use their private key properly. They may wrongly assume these can be easily changed.
• Stakeholders will need to learn how to use blockchain technology.
• Legacy systems will either have to be tweaked or remade

As our journey with Blockchain begins exploring various use cases that can create more security and transparency for businesses, we look forward to empowering our clients with Blockchain in other industries.