How Blockchain Technology Can Redefine Health Data

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<span>H</span>ealth records increase situational awareness by providing an in-depth history of patients. Medical personnel operate at the highest capacity when they are able to securely disburse and source health information. The current centralized health record system is predominantly digitized and remains insecure as organizations transmit data between incompatible platforms. Veteran Affairs maintains a corporate data warehouse where data is secured by one centralized entity (Saleem et al., 2013). This data pile is not only inefficient, but vulnerable to attack in the brutal internet of things environment. The equipment and applications used to store patient information remain susceptible to breaches and feature an extremely low level of interoperability. The current centralized ecosystem disregards the user as the driver of the process. Providing patients with validation credentials creates informative access to personal health information and the possibility of preventative medicine through user empowerment. This alteration to connectivity could spur the incorporation of reactionary medicine. In a realm where immediacy and efficiency are crucial, the current electronic health record system must be altered.