Improving Healthcare Processes with Smart Contracts

Abstract

Currently, we are on the brink of a period of fundamental change for the healthcare expertise of specialists, i.e., existing know-how becomes less available to patients. One of the main reasons is an economic problem: most people and organisations cannot afford the services of first-rate professionals; and most economies are struggling to sustain their professional services, including schools, court systems, and health services. Another reason for the change in healthcare is the rapid growth of evidence-based medical knowledge, where a new research paper is published, on average, every forty-one seconds. Thus, evidence-based medicine is malfunctioning, and delayed, missed, and incorrect diagnoses occur in 10 to 20% of the time. Innovative IT technologies can solve the critical challenges in the healthcare domain. One of such technologies is smart contracts that manage and enforce contracts (business rules) without the interference of a third party. Smart contracts improve interoperability and privacy in cross-organisational processes. In this paper, we define problematic processes in healthcare and then provide a smart contract-based mapping for improving these processes. This paper proposes the way to overcome inequality in services accessibility, inefficient use of services and shortcomings in service quality, using smart contracts and blockchain technology.