Healthcare leaders still have doubts, however, about the feasibility of creating large scale blockchain solutions. http://www.radiusanesthesia.com

1. Blockchain Solutions: An Opportunity for
Anesthesiologists and Their Patients
Radius
Anesthesia

2. What is Blockchain Technology?
 A growing number of leaders in the healthcare industry are looking to blockchain
technology as a means of increasing the accessibility and interoperability of
medical information.
 First used to record trades of the online crypto-currency Bitcoin, blockchain
technology documents online transactions while ensuring that those transactions
are secure.
 Encrypts each piece of information, or “block,” contained in its record with a string
of numbers and letters.
 This unique code can be checked to confirm the validity of the data contained in its
corresponding block.
 It also serves as documentation of the block’s history, changing each time its contents
are edited or accessed without permission.
 Information stored using blockchain technology can be retrieved by many
computers on a single network, without the use of an expensive central database.

3. Blockchain Technology for Healthcare
 Bruce Broussard, the CEO of Humana, extolled the merits of blockchain in an article
last August, writing that it was “positioned to be the next dramatic innovation in
health care.”
 He pointed to the potential for blockchain to supplant intermediary Health Information
Exchanges (HIE’s) as one of its advantages, an opportunity to reduce “transaction time,
fees and fraud” in health industry operations conducted online.
 The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC)
also put on a competition designed to encourage the development of blockchain
solutions for the health care industry, inviting groups from across the country to
submit their recommendations for how the technology should be used
 Gem, a major blockchain developer, recently created Gem Health, a branch of its
operations dedicated to finding blockchain solutions for the health sector.
 IBM’s Watson Health is also working with the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) to investigate potential uses for blockchain in the public health field.

4. Obstacles for Blockchain Technology
in Healthcare
 Healthcare leaders still have doubts, however, about the feasibility of creating large scale
blockchain solutions.
 More than fifty percent of the managers interviewed by IBM cited “poor technology,”
“insufficient skills,” and “regulation” as possible obstructions to the advent of blockchain in
the health sector.
 A report by Tierion, a prominent blockchain data platform, echoed the sentiments of the
managers.
 The authors of the report warned that the cost of switching between blockchain vendors could be
“prohibitively expensive,” thereby granting suppliers of blockchain platforms greater power to
raise prices without fear of losing revenue. The nascent state of blockchain technology, the
authors explained, also makes it more costly to set up blockchain systems. There are relatively few
blockchain developers, and they will likely charge more for their services as demand grows in the
coming years.

5. Blockchain Technology and the Anesthesia
Services Sector
 Firms in the anesthesia services sector and their patients could gain from the wide-scale
implementation of blockchain technology platforms.
 Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs), physician anesthesiologists and anesthesiology
assistants would be able to see realtime updates of their patients’ medical information as other
physicians uploaded new data on shared patients to the blockchain.
 Anesthesiologists and their patients could rest assured that their electronic medical records, once a
target for malicious hackers, were secure, protected by the blockchain’s encryption codes.
 Patients would also have greater access to their own medical information, and direct control over
which health organizations were allowed to view and edit their data.
 Companies in the anesthesia services sector will have to weigh these potential benefits against the
costs of blockchain, however, including the high fixed cost of developing a blockchain platform and
the risk of using relatively untested technology.

6. To learn more about our comprehensive anesthesia
services, visit us at
www.radiusanesthesia.com
E-mail us at info@radiusanesthesia.com
Call 646-887-7984
Radius
Anesthesia