Excitement around the potential of blockchain in healthcare has reached all-time highs and is accelerating. There is a hunger building across the industry for real use cases with real healthcare organizations transacting on blockchain, and proof points, case studies, or success stories that outline business values sought, results achieved, what worked well, and what needs improvement. Only through such hands-on experience can we validate the true potential of blockchain in healthcare, refine its application, improve any deficiencies identified, build trust, and scale it both in terms of the networks of healthcare organizations participating in various blockchain initiatives, as well as scaling blockchain in applying it to additional healthcare use cases.
The HIMSS Blockchain Work Group is a forum of leaders from across healthcare including providers, payers, pharmaceuticals, life sciences, and industry experts worldwide, collaborating to advance the applications of blockchain in healthcare. I have the honor of participating in this group. At the recent HIMSS18 conference in Las Vegas I had the privilege of moderating a session, organized by the HIMSS Blockchain Work Group, with a panel of worldwide experts on blockchain in healthcare. If you missed that event you can now view the video on demand. At this event we had great, candid, deep discussion of the real value and challenges we are currently seeing in the application of blockchain across healthcare. The event was a great success and we had a full house of attendance, with all seats taken and three rows of people standing at the back! We also had more questions than we could get to during the time allocated. Clearly there is great energy, interest, and excitement about blockchain in healthcare, and opportunity for further collaboration across the industry to accelerate the realization of the associated business benefits, from reducing healthcare costs to improving patient outcomes.
Read about it in the Azure blog.