Page 27 - BusinessWest December 21, 2020

More Than Just Bitcoin
Blockchain Can Provide Efficiencies in Healthcare and Other Sectors
By Matthew Ogrodowicz, MSA
‘Blockchain’ is a term used to broadly describe the cryptographic technol-
ogy that underpins several applica- tions, the most widely known of which is Bitcoin and other similar cryptocurrencies.
Even though it is the largest current applica-
know about other ways the technology could be used — including for some of the region’s major industries.
Three of these largest industries in Western Mass. are healthcare, manufacturing, and high- er education. In each of these industries, the
able, secure information is created, capable of supporting applications in the aforementioned fields.
Each of these industries can benefit from the blockchain’s ability to host ‘smart contracts.’ A smart contract is a digital protocol intended to facilitate, verify, or enforce the performance of a transaction. The simplest analogue is that of a vending machine — once payment is made, an item is delivered. Smart contracts would exist on the blockchain and would be triggered by a predefined condition or action agreed upon by the parties beforehand. This allows the parties to transact directly without the need for inter- mediaries, providing time and cost savings as well as automation and accuracy.
Combined with the security and immutabil- ity noted earlier, smart contracts should prove to be a valuable tool, though there is still work to be done in codifying and establishing legal frameworks around smart contracts. Other applications of blockchain technology are more specifically applicable to individual fields.
In the field of healthcare, blockchain’s ability to process, validate, and sanction access to data could lead to a centralized repository of elec- tronic health records and allow patients to per-
Blockchain
Continued on page 28
secure and verifiable “Three of these largest industries in information network
created by blockchain Western Mass. are healthcare, can provide efficiencies.
manufacturing, and higher education. In each of these industries, the secure and verifiable information network created by blockchain can provide efficiencies.”
This network, essential- ly a public ledger, con- sists of a series of trans- actions (blocks), which is distributed and repli- cated across a network of computers referred to as nodes. These nodes each maintain a
tion, a survey conducted on behalf of the Amer- ican Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) in 2018 found that 48% of American adults were not familiar with Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Litecoin, three cryptocurrencies among those with the largest market capitalizations. The larg- est of these, Bitcoin, currently sits at a market capitalization of approximately $355 billion. If half of all adults are unfamiliar with this largest application, it is safe to assume that even fewer
copy of the ledger, which can only be added to by the solving of a cryptographic puzzle that is verified by other nodes in the network.
The information on the ledger is maintained by another aspect of cryptography, which is that the same data encrypted in the same way produces the same result, so if data earlier in the chain is manipulated, it will be rejected by the other nodes even though the data itself is encrypted. Thus, an immutable chain of verifi-
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