67% of first-year costs follow, as hospitals work to resurrect systems and operations. These expenses include making legal, technical, and regulatory amends, notifying and communicating with affected patients, and heightening data security following the incident. On top of these expenses, more money is lost as hospital business decreases as a result of waning customer trust, damage to their reputation, and system shutdowns during reparation. After hospitals find themselves on a steady path to recovery, small to medium medical organizations have spent 5% of their yearly revenue, which on average, totals to $2.5 million.

An additional layer of data security may be the answer to fears and ignite preventative action. Blockchain, defined as, “a distributed ledger for recording transactions and tracking assets”, can secure healthcare data and shield against breaches. Wearable and remote monitors, telehealth, gamification, and health data NFTs are a few blockchain tools that can make a world of difference.

Wearable and remote devices include narcolepsy, blood pressure, seizure, pulse, sleep apnea, and diabetic monitors among others. These devices can be connected to databases that retain each individual’s recorded information. Healthcare personnel can retrieve patient data as it’s being recorded, patients can have more personalized care, and paramedics can better treat patients according to recent data when they arrive. With better security, less errors in data reporting, and longer-lasting technologies, these devices offer many benefits that can aid both data safety and the productiveness of patient-professional relationships.

Telehealth on its own poses notable risks, as few fully-fleshed out regulations and protocols regarding the storage and distribution of data exist and personal information can be shared with marketers and other parties without consent. By implementing blockchain, telehealth security heightens and becomes more dependable. Blockchain can infuse secure storage systems for medical records and compile data to give medical professionals a more comprehensive account of patient history.  By augmenting customer trust in the system and providing more efficient forms of data exchange, adding blockchain components to telehealth could be another guard against data breaches.

Gamification and health data NFTs go hand-in-hand. With gamification, patients are more focused through strategies that facilitate orientation toward their health-related objectives and openness to adopting new skills and habits. Those who attend doctor’s appointments, complete surveys, take prescriptions, and abide by doctor’s orders are rewarded with cryptocurrency tokens. Medical professionals, in turn, minimize losses as a result of improved, motivated outcomes. 

NFTs for health data describes the utilization of non-fungible tokens to protect an individual’s health record, guarding against theft and fraud. Patients benefit from increased control over their data, the possibility of gaining a profit from sharing select data with third parties, and being able to verify the legitimacy of personal information. 

Blockchain is being adopted into systems by both long-standing and up-and-coming healthcare companies, as they improve services and transactions and guard against the toll that data breaches can take on any organization. Learn more about blockchain and health to see how it can secure your service and operations too.

INFOGRAPHIC: A Line of Defense for Healthcare

Infographics Posted by Jen Greco on Mar 2, 2022