New York, NY — A new Deloitte report explores the near-future of blockchain: how seriously the world’s top executives, including many in healthcare, regard the emerging technology and how soon they might invest in it. If you still don’t quite get the excitement around blockchain—in which transactions, made via cryptocurrency, are automatically recorded on a public ledger—you’re not in bad company. According to Deloitte, 44% of executives believe the benefits of blockchain to be “overhyped.”
That said, approximately 40% of respondents claimed that their companies would invest $5 million or more in blockchain within the next year, with almost three quarters of those surveyed saying that they recognize a “compelling business case” for it. More than a third already have some blockchain-based technology in production.
Worldwide, we seem to be approaching the point at which companies start moving from “blockchain tourism,” or tentative exploration of its benefits, to day-to-day use for practical business applications. More than half of healthcare executives reported feeling that, in the coming years, they’ll lose competitive advantage if they abstain from blockchain.
Why This Matters
Blockchain may constitute a major disruption of at least three specific areas of healthcare.
By automatically gathering and displaying all transactions made, blockchain eliminates the need to pay for medical data aggregation and other go-between services, which are often costly and time-consuming.
The technology facilitates patient information-sharing, by including all relevant data in one place. This is particularly useful to clinical trials administrators in search of appropriate subjects.
The public ledger may greatly help the push for value-based care, as opposed to traditional fee-for-service models. The transparency of transactions offered by blockchain will help make it easier to determine appropriate costs.
