Applying Blockchain Technology to Address the Crisis of Trust During the COVID-19 Pandemic.
JMIR Med Inform
; 8(9): e20477, 2020 Sep 22.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-789079
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The widespread death and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed deficiencies of existing institutions regarding the protection of human health and well-being. Both a lack of accurate and timely data and pervasive misinformation are causing increasing harm and growing tension between data privacy and public health concerns.OBJECTIVE:
This aim of this paper is to describe how blockchain, with its distributed trust networks and cryptography-based security, can provide solutions to data-related trust problems.METHODS:
Blockchain is being applied in innovative ways that are relevant to the current COVID-19 crisis. We describe examples of the challenges faced by existing technologies to track medical supplies and infected patients and how blockchain technology applications may help in these situations.RESULTS:
This exploration of existing and potential applications of blockchain technology for medical care shows how the distributed governance structure and privacy-preserving features of blockchain can be used to create "trustless" systems that can help resolve the tension between maintaining privacy and addressing public health needs in the fight against COVID-19.CONCLUSIONS:
Blockchain relies on a distributed, robust, secure, privacy-preserving, and immutable record framework that can positively transform the nature of trust, value sharing, and transactions. A nationally coordinated effort to explore blockchain to address the deficiencies of existing systems and a partnership of academia, researchers, business, and industry are suggested to expedite the adoption of blockchain in health care.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
English
Journal:
JMIR Med Inform
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
20477
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS