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Improving Your Health with Blockchain Technology

It is quite hard to enumerate all the benefits of telemedicine services based on blockchain, but the major one is that all transactions are guaranteed to be secure and transparent.

How Medicine Will Change In the Future

Medicine has to face some difficulties. In some places all around the world access to essential medical services is, unfortunately, limited. Even in advanced countries, huge queues still exist and can prove fatal or cause irreparable damage. In some countries consumers of medical services get debilitating medical bills, and patients as well as doctors frequently have restricted access to medical records.

Nevertheless, the sphere of IT which constitutes the second largest sector seems to have something to offer as a solution to the problem. Modern technology that is increasing at such a fast pace can provide us with yet unforeseen innovations that could dramatically improve the standards of treating patients. The amount of mobile phone users is growing incredibly quickly day by day. That means it will be possible to save more human lives as more people will have access to digital medical services.

How Modern Technology Can Help

Nowadays we can see the vast number of technologies accessible, and there are even more applications based on them. Huge amounts of data can be processed by such modern technology as artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and machine learning, and that is impossible for us, human beings. Some other technology, for example, blockchain can enhance security, privacy, and efficiency of medical computing, or telemedicine can provide the communication between patients and medical specialists so that the patient can consult the physician about health problems that are not of great concern, and enormous databases allow common people to educate themselves on health issues to be able to care for themselves.

Certainly, some technological solutions in the sphere of healthcare are already on the market. Most of them function in a similar way.

Their main purpose of many medical blockchain platforms and services is to alter the healthcare industry for the better thus making it more convenient for their user, simplify medical record retrieval, optimize the process of treatment, provide wider health coverage, spread information about health and medicine to encourage people to live a healthy lifestyle. Telemedicine services based on blockchain unite experts in different fields such as medicine, artificial technologies, and IT. That can provide a wider range of opportunities for healthcare.

How Patients Can Benefit Using Modern Technology

Let’s imagine that you get sick or are just interested in maintaining your good health. Using telemedicine you have an opportunity to get a specialist’s piece of advise on what to do to recover or monitor your health condition (however, you should take into account that in some cases it’s necessary to visit the trained professional in the clinic to be examined and treated more carefully).

Apart from that, you can also use the service of the second opinion to make sure that your doctor chose the right way to treat you. In addition, telemedicine allows you to find better clinics and hospitals in your area.

Telemedicine Can Facilitate Doctors’ Job

The use of patients’ electronic medical records can greatly ease doctors’ job because the specialist can get as much information as necessary from the medical history to aid the patient and determine what treatment better suits him or her. Furthermore, vast database can help the doctor to keep the patient up-to-date on the latest medical recommendations about treatment and medicines.

Moreover, the doctor can contact patients to ask for information about their health or previous treatment, remind them of appointments, and carry out on-demand remote consultations. There is plenty of telemedicine services these days that allow medical specialists to maximize the benefits and gain experience.     

In addition, tokens enable its holders to invest them in anticipation of the price growth, or exchange them for any other cryptocurrency or fiat currencies. Basically, telemedicine services offers their  users not only medical or professional but also financial benefits.

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Blockchain and the Medical Data Market

As many other spheres of human activity healthcare is going through the process of decentralization, and it inevitably leads to the emergence of new more advanced medical data business models and democratization of existing healthcare systems. After studying several researches on healthcare we found out that there are several opportunities to use blockchain in healthcare efficiently.

Blockchain solving cybersecurity problems

Healthcare industry has its own norms in terms of security and confidentiality. However nowadays it costs much to healthcare companies to deal with threats to their cybersecurity. There is an increase in the cost of data leak in the field of health service. $380 is the sum that medical companies have to pay for one leaked document while in other spheres we can observe a decline by 10%.

Apart from that, some manufacturers of medical equipment informed their customers about the possibility of hacker attacks on some of their products. So there is an obvious need in trustworthy IT ecosystems.

One of the possible decisions is the blockchain technology. In the perspective it can decrease cybersecurity threat level on the one hand, and on the other hand increase the level of trust of healthcare systems users. With the help of this modern technology medical companies have access to a more reliable strategy for providing safe use and storage of patients data and protection against hackers.

exchange of medical data

Exchange medical data

It is quite difficult to ensure safe data exchange in healthcare. To do that two  organisations should trust each other and have  shared responsibility using this data. However, healthcare system faces some challenges, for example, the scarcity of security and integrity within the modern HIT systems.

Such tendency causes the search for innovative technological solutions. Blockchain may be the solution. The blockchain features guarantee data invariability and integrity of medical data exchange, and provide security for working process.

consumer demand in healthcare

How to satisfy consumer demand in healthcare

Today people take their health and self-care much more seriously. For example, the results several surveys demonstrate that almost  69% American citizens care of  their health. Moreover, 41% of those surveyed would like to change their doctor and visit another specialist the, and 74% of patients take into consideration news and announcements received after the doctor’s appointment.

Yet consumers are seldom provided with the access to their treatment plans and other similar information. It works so because of rules of the personal data, confidentiality and the HIT systems that are used today. So new methods to solve such problems the field of digital  healthcare are of great importance.

The blockchain technology is an instrument that allows to use the function of identification management with a predetermined access of confidentiality. So patients can monitor their health data. Besides,this data is encrypted so it is possible for consumers to share this personal information anonymously and selectively, for instance, for specialists to research it.

dealing with economic values

Dealing with the economic values of medical data

In the future one of the digital democratization requirements will be more detailed use of IT in the sphere of health care. New  model of treatment should become predictable and preventive and focused on the result.

The reduction of healthcare costs is observed  throughout the world, therefore blockchain technology offers new options for the economic advantage. Blockchain automatized many business processes, for instance, claim processing, management of accounts, supply of drugs. Decentralization of blockchain facilitates establishing commercial relationships and offers new means for promoting models of providing aid. All this allows to save great sums of money for healthcare sphere.

genome data

Providing precision medicine

It is estimated that about $300 billion is wasted every year on ineffective drugs that do not enable companies to receive anticipated benefits or even cause dangerous side effects, that is why pharmaceutical companies have to deal with pressure and try to prove the value of their drugs. Clearly the better solution for them in such a situation is to change the strategy by stopping the production of the so-called “bestsellers” and to develop personalized medicines instead. The idea of precision medicine is about to change the existing model of treating patients. The most significant part of precision medicine is personalized data, though there exist some problems connected with interaction of medical data and confidentiality.

Blockchain security infrastructure is developed to provide unimpeded data exchange in healthcare field. It can foster innovation in medicine and healthcare service and help to carry out greater demographic researches. These days pharmaceutical companies pay special attention to precision medicine and the invariability of records made with the use of blockchain can simplify cooperation between doctors, researchers and patients.

Such problems as cybersecurity, data compatibility, drugs supply, banking fraud can be solved by blockchain. This modern technology allows to optimize IT-systems and develop new business models. Nevertheless, the possibilities of blockchain are not unlimited as it cannot solve the healthcare problems.

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How blockchain-based veterinary telemedicine can help your pet?

Sometimes it happens that pet’s behavior is a matter of concern. What’s a pet owner to do? In this article the team at PetLife will tell what situations are urgent and you need to schedule an appointment to veterinarian or you can get use of telemedicine and receive telehealth consultation. Veterinary care providers are looking for a way to cover the growing demand for veterinary care are are merging the communication benefits of telehealth and infrastructure benefits of blockchain fir enhanced interpretation of test results, data storage and electronic prescriptions.

Cough

The reasons for pet’s cough may be of different nature. Some of them not that serious and don’t require immediate veterinary visit, others pose a threat for pet’s life. For instance, the cough may appear if a pet choked on something or there is a serious problem in the lungs or the heart. During a telehealth consultation,  a veterinarian can decide whether your pet needs an in-person appointment and further examination.

Poor appetite

Have you noticed that your pet has a poor appetite? Don’t panic! A veterinarian will evaluate the situation via telehealth consultation and  decide whether it’s possible to help your pet at home or you should visit a clinic through online chat. Take pet’s temperature before the call — it will help the veterinarian to make the right decision and provide valuable health data for the pets’ electronic record. If the pet has the signs of dehydration, lack of appetite during a long period of time or stomach ache, the vet will schedule you an appointment for an immediate consultation as they could be symptoms of a larger issue.

Dermal itching

Dermal itching is very common among dogs. Mostly it caused by ectoparasite bites, infection and food hypersensitivity. If a pet has itching a veterinarian via video consultation will be able to identify its cause and issue prescriptions quickly and efficiently simply by observing the video feed. No need to hassle your pet by taking it to the veterinary office in the first place. Chances are, you will be directed to a clinic to take samples of skin for analysis to get the full picture. In other cases a vet will help you to choose antiparasitic treatment. With blockchain technology, clinics, labs and offices can be interconnected and securely share health data for your pet regardless of their internal software they leverage in their day to day operations. 

Vomit

Vomit is quite common too and it may be caused by many reasons. It is a defense mechanism that aimed to remove all the toxic, poisoning, inedible particles and foreign bodies from the digestive tract. Fortunately, it not necessarily indicates danger. A veterinarian can evaluate pet’s health condition and give you directions on how to treat it at home. If a pet has a stomach ache, constantly vomiting or the vomit contains blood don’t delay your visit to the clinic. 

There exist many more cases that the article describes. So, you should remember if the pet’s behavior causes suspicion, the faster you detect the reason the better. Telemedicine based on blockchain will help to understand that the pet is not in danger and calm down or give a preliminary diagnosis and determine how urgent your visit to a clinic is.

Petlife is an international blockchain-based platform for pet owners and providers of veterinary care.

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