Implementation of Blockchain
At the mention of the word Blockchain, Bitcoin and other digital currencies would immediately register on many people’s minds, and this is justifiably so because Blockchain was primarily developed to underpin cryptocurrencies. The Blockchain network is a decentralized ledger system that facilitates fast and secure peer to peer transactions. To better understand how Blockchain works, think of it like an Operating system like Windows or Mac and Bitcoin as an application. Bitcoin and all other digital values ride on Blockchain just as an application needs an operating system to run on. Simple! Let’s go on! Being a trusted network Blockchain has recently made its way into quite several industries, health being among them.
A recent study by IBM conducted on 2017 called “Healthcare Rallies for Blockchain” revealed that 16% of Healthcare facilities had well laid out plans to embrace and implement the Blockchain technology immediately while another 56% look forward to integrating their healthcare system with Blockchain by 2020. At this point, you may ask, how will Blockchain revolutionize the Healthcare system? How will it streamline some of the complex healthcare protocols and procedures? By adopting the Blockchain solution, the healthcare system will have many benefits to reap from. This includes streamlining of hospital bill payments and administration of patients, insurers and physicians to mention just but a few. Complex, hectic and time-consuming processes that ultimately scale up the cost of seeking healthcare will be done away with by implementation of widely accessible medical databases and improved privacy & security of data.
One of the Blockchain solutions tailored for the global dental industry is Dentacoin. Dentacoin focuses at the improvement of the dental care industry by making it more affordable by bringing together all the stakeholders in the industry and facilitating mutual as well as personal benefits. When all market participants are interconnected, the difficulty of accessing medical records and assistance will be significantly reduced. So far, Dentacoin ICO has been implemented as a mode of payment in 21 dental clinics across the globe including Netherlands – its mother country, USA, UK, Hungary, Italy, India, Fiji, Bulgaria and Taiwan to mention just but a few. The coin has unveiled an insurance like model called Dentacoin assurance where patients will not pay to seek for treatment, but rather pay for prevention. Its objective it to foster good relations between patients and dentists and offer patients full-covered dental care at low monthly rates while at the same time assuring dentists of stable monthly incomes. During its brief existence, Dentacoin has managed to mobilize funding of its initiatives courtesy of approximately 20000 contributors from across the globe and an estimated community of nearly 100000 people supporting its development and growth.
Implementation of Blockchain is still a reserve for cryptocurrencies and largely remains unexploited in the health sector. However, as time goes by and systems become more intricate and diverse, more healthcare providers will jump on board and take advantage of Blockchain technology. This will go a long way in making patients’ lives as well as those of physicians better, more convenient and satisfactory.