Though healthcare monitoring systems have improved over time, a rapid rise in the epidemic demonstrates the inadequacy of such systems to address pandemics and public health emergencies on time. Furthermore, problems with infection containment and tracking have exacerbated the situation. The rapid increase in the epidemic has brought several crucial difficulties regarding the health surveillance system, including traceability, reachability, accessibility, verifiability, certifiability, etc.

One of the most important activities in such outbreaks is tracking the potential spread of the disease and then containing and controlling it. Governments are trying everything possible to restrict the virus’s spread. Nonetheless, their efforts are hampered by a lack of timely information regarding illnesses, travel data, geo-location movements, and possible networks in contact with the individual. In the absence of a safe, open, and decentralized surveillance system, understanding the severity and spread of the outbreak is extremely difficult. Blockchain, a disruptive technology, can aid in numerous aspects of epidemic control and monitoring.

Blockchain in healthcare industry might aid in the development of strong and transparent borderless health surveillance technologies. Through such platforms, the government, politicians, health care providers, and other interested parties may have timely access to transparent information, allowing them to improve medical supply chains, health services, and citizen services.

The pandemic has had a global influence on health care, hastening the introduction of digital technology. Blockchain, one of these developing digital technologies, can help battle pandemics by allowing for early discovery of outbreaks, assuring the ordering of medical data, and maintaining a dependable medical supply chain during the epidemic tracking process. Furthermore, AI provides intelligent methods for diagnosing coronavirus symptoms for therapies and assisting in medication manufacture.

Blockchain properties like immutability, decentralization, data provenance, transparency, and robustness might help fulfill such aspirations. Furthermore, utilizing a robust blockchain in healthcare industry makes it feasible to ensure data integrity and security while working with critical data sets of an epidemic. In addition,  smart contracts may perform the data collecting process automatically and trigger specific actions based on pre-defined instructions.

How does the Blockchain for Covid-19 function?

The participating nodes in the blockchain network comprise the patients, testing and clinical laboratories, hospitals, and government sites. In addition, the digital ledger contains patient data, sample test results, treatment status, and a discharge narrative. Furthermore, the blockchain technology procedures include gathering the necessary data from the blockchain participating nodes, generating raw data, and then transforming it into large-scale data.

The technology of Blockchain for Covid-19 will ensure the security of acquired data and aid in the preservation of its privacy. Various artificial intelligence-based technologies are used to evaluate blockchain-secured data.

Blockchain Technology offers a variety of viable COVID-19 pandemic solutions, including outbreak tracking, donor tracking, and medical supply chain management. It is also utilized to establish quick, secure, and dependable data sharing between stakeholders. Hence, the future of blockchain in healthcare looks promising and is on the way to advancing more along with newer technologies and integrated platforms. Now let’s dig deep into some of the key advantages of blockchain technology to combat covid and assist the healthcare system.

Benefits offered by blockchain

Blockchain technology’s main uses in the COVID-19 epidemic are :

1.Disease control– Effective and accurate disease surveillance is required for infectious disease control and preventing pandemic spread. It may be used internationally to track the spread of COVID-19 infections among humans and is done by putting the blockchain network in the electronic devices of inhabitants in the country. In the COVID-19 pandemic, blockchain technology is critical for assisting virus victims by immutably documenting patient symptoms of illness.

2.Traceability– Controlling the transmission of coronavirus is critical. With blockchain technology, the system can trace the travels of infected patients, offer real-time data about impacted locations, and report on direct combat operations—the chain blocks to store information about safe zones such as population and current coronavirus epidemic status. To maintain transparency in the medical supply chain, goods and medical supplies must be continually tracked.

3.Strengthening the supply chain of medical components throughout the crisis– Maintaining a constant supply of medications and foods has become a significant issue for the healthcare industry during this pandemic catastrophe. Blockchain technology has shown to be quite beneficial in the commodities supply chain and the trade supply chain.

4.Improving transparency in the treatment of infected patients is critical to safeguard patients’ data and information undergoing treatment. Blockchain can ensure data accuracy by its capacity to validate the information and deliver real-time data updates. It can help with the move from institution-driven to patient-centered interoperability.

On the whole, the future of blockchain in healthcare holds a wide range of possible COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 use cases. However, much of the present research is still technical, with few having simple clinical applications, emphasizing the importance of translating core blockchain technology into clinical usage. It is unknown if Blockchain for Covid-19 is a panacea for combating such pandemics, but it can solve many problems.

A lightweight design of blockchain in healthcare industry is required to maximize data verification and transaction communication. Creating customized ledgers on local computers in the epidemic region improves blockchain performance. The future of blockchain in healthcare combined with other developing technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud computing might give a highly effective solution to deal with devastating pandemics such as the coronavirus.

Conclusion

MSRvantage track and trace solutions offer comprehensive and dependable methods of increasing security and providing end-to-end visibility across the medical supply chain and infected patients. Thanks to the huge capacity of distributed ledger technology, Track and Trace solutions create a secure environment for data interchange and workflow. Finally, track & trace will assist you in combating fraud and counterfeiting by offering a comprehensive perspective of the complicated product journey.

Doctors, government, and other agencies can share track and trace data with the public to make them aware of their surroundings and help them take precautions. They will gain trust as a result of this transparent process.

MSRvantage blockchain will provide a platform to distinguish between fake and original pharmaceuticals, saving countless lives by giving real medicines to end-users. Blockchain can thus aid the healthcare business in a variety of ways.