Will Web3 be the Cure for Healthcare’s Data Challenges?

Today’s hospitals face several significant data transfer and storage challenges, ranging from security and privacy concerns to interoperability issues. Decentralized technology has the potential to address these challenges and provide innovative solutions. In this episode of our WEB FREE series, we take a look at some of the key challenges and explore how Web3 technology could help overcome them.

Possible Web3 solutions for hospitals’ data challenges

#1 — Data Security and Privacy: Hospitals handle extremely sensitive patient data. It must be securely transmitted and stored to ensure privacy and comply with data protection regulations.

How Web3 can help: Web3’s decentralized nature provides enhanced data security. Medical records could be stored on a distributed ledger with encryption. This would minimize the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches. Smart contracts can enforce effective access control and consent management.

#2 — Interoperability: Most hospitals use a variety of electronic health records (EHR) systems which often prevents effective communication. These data silos lead to fragmented patient data and difficult coordination.

How Web3 can help: The interoperability of Web3 can facilitate a more efficient data exchange between different EHR systems and healthcare providers. By standardizing data formats, decentralized data protocols can provide a unified perspective of patient records across multiple platforms.

#3 — Optimizing Supply Chain and Inventory Management: A lack of real-time visibility, data fragmentation, manual entry errors, and inaccurate forecasting all pose serious challenges for today’s hospitals. In combination, they lead to higher costs and reduce the efficiency of patient care.

How Web3 can help: Hospitals could use Web3 to simplify and improve their supply chain and inventory management. Decentralized technology could help track medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, and equipment. This would help to avoid shortages while also reducing waste and costs.

#4 — Disaster Recovery and Redundancy: More than any other organization, hospitals need reliable backup and disaster recovery solutions to ensure continuity of care in the event of hardware failures, cyberattacks, or natural disasters.

How Web3 can help: With decentralized storage, Web3 solutions such as WeSendit provide redundancy across multiple nodes, significantly reducing the risk of data loss. In the event of a failure, data can be quickly restored, ensuring minimal disruption to patient care.

#5 — Patient Consent Management: Collecting and managing patient consent for data sharing is often a complex, tedious, and time-consuming process for all parties involved. It can significantly slow down a hospital’s workflows, causing unnecessary delays in patient care.