Identifying Blockchain's Implications for Healthcare

By now, most healthcare leaders understand that blockchain boasts the potential to improve the industry. At the very least, they should know of blockchain and that its uses go beyond the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. But how, exactly, can the technology help healthcare? Well, the number of decision makers with an answer to that question is probably lower than innovators would hope.

Fortunately, the dark ages are coming to an end. In conference centers across the world, healthcare honchos are preaching blockchain’s value for patients, physicians, and institutions. Coverage of its promise—for cybersecurity, interoperability, and more—is picking up, including here, at Healthcare Analytics News™. To that end, we are participating in a webinar, “Blockchain’s Implications for Healthcare,” with our parent company, Healthcare Research & Analytics®. It is scheduled for 1 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 8, with registration open to the blockchain curious and committed alike.

“We are stepping into a new era of healthcare management and need to consider the application of blockchain in our daily professional lives,” said Steve Ennen, editor-in-chief of HCA and chief digital officer at Michael J. Hennessy Associates, Inc., which owns HRA®. “Healthcare institutions house a sizeable amount of patient data, which creates needless obstacles because it cannot be accessed by the patients and sometimes by other institutions. During this webinar, we will discuss the advantages of blockchain and ways they help create a more patient-centric environment.”

The webinar features attorney and blockchain expert Steven W. Teppler, who leads the Abbott Law Group’s electronic discovery and tech-related class action and mass tort litigation. An adjunct professor at the Nova Southeastern Law School, he also teaches electronic discovery and information governance. Teppler holds 6 patents surrounding content authentication and founded the American Bar Association’s Internet of Things Committee. Through it all, he has emerged as a key opinion leader, writing and speaking about blockchain.

During the webinar, Joseph Carballeira, associate director of market research for HRA®, is slated to discuss fresh research on blockchain and its place in healthcare. As HCA’s senior editor, I will also be on hand to ask questions and provide insights I have picked up in my reporting.

The webinar will review the driving forces behind blockchain and examine its place in the healthcare world. It will look at interoperability and real-world applications that viewers may then implement in their practices, boosting patient centricity, drug development, managed care, and more.

Consider this: This single technology—and its diverse uses—could help solve many of healthcare’s most pressing problems. Why not tune in and see what blockchain’s all about?