Blockchain for Healthcare

Blockchain is a digital ledger of information transactions secured by cryptography. 

Many blockchains are distributed, decentralized, verifiable, tamper resistant, and secure.

Blockchain technology has been used to implement digital currency systems (Bitcoin and others), smart contract systems (Ethereum), and is under active exploration as a potentially transformational technology in finance, government, and healthcare.  

This lecture provides a brief non-technical overview of blockchain to facilitate further discussions on how this technology may impact the healthcare industry.

This presentation will discuss how blockchain has the potential to impact healthcare costs by improving efficiency and reducing duplicated efforts.

The article titled "30 healthcare statistics that keep hospital executives up at night" is essential background reading about hospital related healthcare costs.  Factors such as administrative burdens and redundancy are discussed in detail.  This article will be particularly useful to anyone who does not work in the US healthcare system.

The Kaiser Family Foundation link to the Healthcare Costs archive has multiple articles about specific aspects of healthcare costs.  This is a trove of information for anyone trying to understand why healthcare is so expensive in the US.

This presentation will discuss how the unique properties of blockchain have the potential to improve the quality of healthcare delivery.  

The resources include links to actual health care quality measures so you can get a better understanding of what health care quality means.  It is important to note that most measures of "healthcare quality" are actually measures of process compliance, not improved outcomes!

Reviewing the Medicare Value Based Purchasing (VBP) summary give a brief introduction to some quality measures and how compliance with those quality measures can impact hospital reimbursement.  Links within this document will take you to the full definitions of these quality measures and other information related to the VBP program for those who are interested.

The Merit Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) and Alternative Payment Model (APM) are two programs that are fundamentally changing how healthcare services are paid.  These programs were part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA), and are complex and evolving.  Helping healthcare systems and practices measure, improve, and comply with these programs is a potential growth area for the role of blockchain in healthcare.

This presentation will discuss how blockchain technology could impact the value of healthcare.  Challenges with the definition of healthcare quality are also discussed.

The external resources include a New England Journal of Medicine article discussing a definition of health care value and a link to the UCSF Center for Healthcare Value.

Barriers to the use of blockchain in the healthcare system are discussed, with particular focus on how HIPAA (patient privacy law) may pose barriers to the use of blockchain in healthcare systems.

The external resources include a basic HIPAA compliance checklist, a presentation on the basics of privacy (the type of training that employees would receive), and a extensive Guide to Privacy and Security of Electronic Health Information.  This 62 page guide provides a basic overview of the rules and standards for storing, sharing, and transmitting electronic health information.  A must read for anyone considering building a blockchain solution that will use protected health information.