What is it about?
This introductory chapter discusses how blockchain technology and wearable devices can work together to make health care smarter. It explains how blockchain creates an immutable, private patient data record that algorithms and artificial intelligence can analyze to improve medical diagnosis and treatment.
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Why is it important?
This highlights an important potential application of blockchain technology in healthcare. Combining real-time patient data from wearables with blockchain's security and immutability could enable advanced data analytics and decision-making, improving efficiency and outcomes. The ideas around "digital doctors" acting on smart contracts are innovative.
Perspectives
As a clinician, I am intrigued by the possibilities outlined here. The potential to leverage large datasets from wearables, avoid data silos, apply predictive algorithms, and prompt real-time clinical interventions could transform how we deliver care. However, realizing this will require overcoming substantial technical, regulatory, and adoption hurdles. I hope medicine, tech, and policy leaders can collaborate to explore these ideas further. If done thoughtfully, blockchain-enabled "smart health care" could make medicine more proactive, responsive, and effective.
Thomas F Heston MD
University of Washington
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Introductory Chapter: Making Health Care Smart, August 2018, IntechOpen,
DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.78993.
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