Blockchain growth continues to disrupt different industries. It makes possible the shift from on-paper to online transactions safely and seamlessly, while security and verification measures become more efficient and streamlined. Blockchain database Blockdata revealed that 81 of the top 100 public companies in the world use blockchain to amp their operations.
With the proven utility of blockchain and the strides it is making in various industries, it is not surprising that many are anticipating its explosive growth this year. One of the industries that blockchain growth will significantly boost is the healthcare industry.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the countries that has recognized early on the potential of blockchain to boost healthcare. The desert nation made it one of its pillars during their UAE Blockchain Conference held last year. Hosted by the Switzerland-based blockchain organization Bitcoin Association, the UAE Conference aims to advance blockchain adoption in the country by devising a national blockchain plan.
The conference had an exclusive invite-only guest list composed of UAE’s decision makers, C-level executives, royal family members, and media representatives. These VIPs joined the conference to better understand and utilize blockchain’s immutability, transparency and scalability in both the public and private sectors.
The exclusivity of the event is because of the UAE’s ambition to be a global blockchain powerhouse. It has set big goals for blockchain integration and works aggressively to achieve them. Thus, the event featured one-on-one networking sessions for its attendees where they can comprehensively discuss with some of the BSV ecosystem’s thought leaders.
Although blockchain adoption is largely attributed as something benefitting the finance industry, the healthcare industry also is positioned to prosper with blockchain-based platforms. Dr. Alia Sadawi, a researcher at the American University of Sharjah, took the stage to discuss how the healthcare industry can benefit from blockchain.
Sadawi made the COVID-19 pandemic as a prime example on the benefit of having an immutable ledger to “effectively track and trace information and the distribution of vaccines.” Although the global concern for coronavirus has now subsided, Sadawi insists that there is still a “clear use case for the technology.”
“We want to know if a symptom occurs randomly or if it is associated with a certain company, or if it is associated with a certain lot of that company’s vaccine. After taking the vaccine, there are potential symptoms which might happen,” Sadawi explained.
Vaccines usually requires 10 to 15 years of research and testing to determine long-term efficacy and side effects. Currently, there still lies an inadequate availability of CoVID-19 vaccine trial documents and data, and blockchain can easily record this data set in an efficient and economical manner.
Blockchain’s decentralized ledger eliminates intermediaries and paper-based verification measures. Thus, data verification and retrieval are more efficient at near real-time speed. With all these factors at stake, Sadawi pushes through the idea to “link a mesh of information that helps the health sector on following up on the vaccine aftermath symptoms.”
The aggregation of data transfer, monitoring and tracing will save years of efforts from medical experts and scientists. Indeed, the healthcare industry, especially vaccine research, can benefit greatly from blockchain’s inherent capabilities. And experts predict that 2023 is the year that blockchain growth within the healthcare industry can be seen and felt.