Full Description
Blockchain technology (BT) is quietly transforming the world, from financial infrastructure, to the internet-of-things, to healthcare applications. With increasing penetration of BT into various areas of our daily lives, the need arises for better awareness and greater knowledge about the capabilities, benefits, risks, and alternatives to distributed ledger applications. It is hoped that current book will be one of the pioneering collections focusing on blockchain implementations in the area of healthcare, with specific aim to present content in an easy-to-understand and readily accessible way for typical end-users of blockchain-based applications. There are important areas within the fabric of modern healthcare that stand to benefit from implementations of BT. These areas include electronic medical records, quality control, patient safety, finance, device tracking, biostamping/biocertification, redundant storage of critical data, health and liability insurance, medication utilization tracking (including opioid and antibiotic misuse), financial transactions, academics/education, asset tokenization, public health and pandemics, healthcare provider credentialing, and many other potential applications. The ultimate goal of the proposed book would be to provide an integrative, easy-to-understand, and comprehensive picture of the current state of blockchain use in healthcare while actively engaging the reader in a forward-looking, exploratory approach toward future developments in this space. To accomplish this goal, an expert panel of contributors has been assembled, featuring scholars from top global universities and think-tanks.
Contents
1. Introductory chapter: Early applications and evolution of blockchain implementations in medicine.- 2. Can Blockchain Technology Change Contemporary Medicine As It Is Currently Understood?.- 3. The Current State of Healthcare Information Exchange (HIE) and Proposing a Blockchain HIE Infrastructure.- 4. An amalgamation of blockchain and connected health for combating COVID-19.- 5. Applications of Blockchain Technology in the COVID-19 Era. 6. Distributed Ledgers and Immunity Passports: The Intersection of Clinical Medicine and Digital Technology.- 7. Digital Identity, Computational Reliabilism, and the Future of IOMT: Epistemic Reasoning and The Role of Blockchain in Removing Human Tampering from Pharmacovigilance Decision Making.- 8. Potential implementations of blockchain technology in patient safety: A high-level overview.- 9. Blockchain in Medical Education.- 10. Blockchain in Education: Linking Competency Assessment with Credentialing.- 11. Optimizing Blockchain Technology in Academic Medicine.- 12. Distributed Research Networks.- 13. Use of Blockchain Technology for Implantable Medical Device Tracking.- 14. Application of Blockchain Technology in Healthcare Supply Chains.
