Blockchain refers to a novel method of digitally recording information that cannot be altered after it has been created.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can’t function without blockchain technology. To learn about digital currency. Knowing what blockchain is and how it works is essential.
A blockchain is a distributed, shared, and immutable ledger that operates on a P2P network and is accessible in real-time. Normal databases usually have a manager who can add or edit records. Because no central authority oversees a blockchain, it functions differently than other databases.
Features of Blockchain
Its first practical application is in the infrastructure behind digital currencies. The characteristics of blockchain that make it so promising for digital currency and, potentially, so many other uses will be discussed.
1. Blockchain’s Role as a Data Structure
A blockchain is a continuously expanding digital ledger that stores information in “blocks.” Bitcoin transactions are the information that is recorded in the blockchain. It all begins with a single building unit or genesis block. Since more and more information is being stored, more and more blocks must be added. There is a connection between each successive block in the sequence and the one before it, all the way back to the genesis block. The term “chain” to describe the arrangement of blocks is what gives this data structure its catchy moniker.
2) Immutability
To ensure the safety and permanence of the data it stores, the blockchain employs cryptography. A cryptographic hash function generates a one-of-a-kind string of characters that serves as a reference to each individual block. This function takes an arbitrary number of bytes as input and returns a string of a constant length. The term “hash” describes this truncated result.
3) Safeguarding Information
The blockchain is usually kept and updated across a network of computers. The Bitcoin blockchain is stored on thousands of devices around the world. This means that the data is safe even if an attack or network problems compromise some of the devices.
4) Distributed Ledger Technology
We will now discuss the distributed ledger of data, arguably the most well-known aspect of the blockchain. The distributed ledger can be used by a small, trusted group of people in a local area network or by anyone in the world via the internet.
Since the ledger can exist on multiple devices, in different locations, this safeguards the system from data loss in the event of a machine or server failure. As long as there is at least one online device with the most up-to-date version of the blockchain, other users can continue accessing and adding information on the blockchain.
5. Relative User Anonymity
The blockchain typically only displays digital addresses that have units associated with them, protecting the privacy of the users. The blockchain can be distributed globally while preserving some measure of privacy thanks to the use of public key cryptography.
Digital currencies use a form of cryptography called public key cryptography, which has been around since the 1970s. However, the innovative use of cryptography alongside the blockchain allowed for workable decentralized currencies.
6) Blockchain’s Solution to Double Spending
As the name implies, double spending is the possibility of a user spending the same units twice. This is analogous to using the popular messaging service Whatsapp to broadcast a message to a large group of people.
Bitcoin’s elegant solution was to create a distributed ledger and a consensus mechanism, by which users could vote on which transactions should be included in the latest block. In this way, once the block has been broadcasted, anyone can check to see if the user really does have the coins in question.
It’s easy to see how this aspect of the blockchain can help disrupt a wide variety of industries that rely on large, inefficient central machinery at present. One prime example is the electoral process; in the May 2018 federal election, West Virginia became the first state in the United States to use blockchain technology. Absentee military voters could use a mobile app built on blockchain technology to cast their ballots from anywhere in the world.
How Blockchain is Revolutionizing the Healthcare Sector
In today’s healthcare system, antiquated record-keeping systems pose significant management and security challenges. Many believe that the introduction of blockchain technology will greatly enhance this system.
There are three main ways in which healthcare organizations will benefit from blockchain technology.
1) Improved Patient Data Management and Sharing
Current healthcare record-keeping systems are antiquated and fragmented, leading to poorly managed data and security flaws. As a result, healthcare organizations frequently expend unnecessary effort, money, and materials. Blockchain, on the other hand, is a unified system that centralizes patients’, doctors’, and hospitals’ access to their own personal health records in a decentralized, encrypted ledger protected by a private key.
2) Efficient Payment Process
In the healthcare sector, micropayments are typically issued through consolidated third-party services. In most cases, however, this method is “slow, vulnerable to hacking, results in high fees over time, and is not transparent,” as the authors put it. Payments made using blockchain technology are made with cryptocurrency tokens rather than traditional banking systems. Direct deposit into the digital wallet of the healthcare provider “provides a secure, transparent, fast, and traceable method of payment.”
3) Enhanced CyberSecurity
Breaches in the security of patient medical records are not only expensive but also potential legal issues and harm to the organization’s reputation. Blockchain, on the other hand, can offer standard security protocols and end-to-end encryption to keep data safe even while in transit and out of the hands of hackers.
Challenges of the Healthcare Sector
The healthcare industry faces many problems that blockchain technology can help solve.
- Standard conventions that are widely used Challenges in data collection include the absence of a reliable system for ensuring the safety of data during transmission, and the inability to process transactions quickly among different data sources.
- Protected health information (PHI) accessibility hinders medical study.
- Confidentiality and safety of data
- Distributed patient information across different channels, departments, and IT systems is a major challenge in the healthcare industry.
- This prevents necessary information from being readily available when required.
- The current healthcare system is fragmented due to the many players involved and the erratic nature of its procedures.
- Furthermore, data security breaches highlight the system’s inability to handle the secure exchange of information.
As a result, healthcare providers are unable to provide their patients with the attention they need and deserve. Take a look at these numbers and see what we can learn:
- Only about 50% of clinical trials conducted in the United States get published.
- There are mistakes or misleading entries in as much as 40% of healthcare providers’ data records.
- Organizational healthcare data breaches cost an average of $380 per compromised record. 2.5 times the average across all industries worldwide.
Also read about other blockchain-related concepts like blockchain healthcare app development, how healthcare benefits from Blockchain, and much more.
Conclusion
Even with the upsides, blockchain technology may not catch on in the healthcare sector as it did in the creative industries.
More so, the blockchain is not without flaws. More than a hundred Bitcoins were hacked in 2020, and in the future, hackers will seek new ways to bypass blockchain-supported security. There is still work to be done to meet regulatory standards for the use of blockchain technology in healthcare, such as ensuring that HIPAA, a federal patient protection law passed in 1996, is fully incorporated into the system.