Due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the telemedicine business is booming in the diagnosis and treatment of illness. At the beginning of the British epidemic, GP surgery urged patients to suspend surgical treatment to prevent the potential spread of the virus. Health Minister Matt Hancock suggested that consultations should be conducted through telemedicine if possible. After
, the use of telemedicine has increased dramatically. A survey by the Royal College of GPs found that 6 out of 10 appointments in mid-July were made by phone. In addition, a Forrester report stated that telemedicine visits will reach 20 million people this year. With the second nationwide lockdown, a vaccine is still several months away from being released to the public. With the importance of telemedicine, it will become a basic treatment in the future.
However, with the rapid development of technology will bring potential risks, so security and privacy issues must be eliminated. Medical service providers must ensure that they put patient safety first, ensure that they employ certified medical professionals, and invest in the right technologies to promote telemedicine. Blockchain plays a role in these two key factors to ensure patient safety.
Verification of the qualifications of medical professionals
Like the real medical environment, the virtual medical environment promoted by telemedicine needs to provide a safe environment for patients. The key to achieving this is to use the right medical professionals as the medium. It is crucial for healthcare professionals to conduct proper reviews before allowing them to practice on telemedicine platforms, so providers must ensure that their sources are verified and trusted healthcare professionals to Ensure their skills and qualifications. With this in mind, an innovation that is accelerating is blockchain verification. For example, using a professional document verification platform that supports blockchain, applicants can safely upload and verify private documents, such as passports or university certificates, and provide them with a form of portable certificate. Then, recruiters and medical regulators can view and verify the qualifications of candidates against the blockchain. The
recruiter’s point of view is that this can greatly simplify the verification process by eliminating the continuous verification requirements of employers and educational institutions every time a medical professional applies for a new position. For the applicants themselves, this process will also speed up, because their certificates only need to be verified once before being stored on the blockchain. They can then share this information with potential employers at any time in the future, instead of having to go through verification every time they apply for a position.
By using professional document verification that supports blockchain, telemedicine providers can eliminate the risk of hiring unqualified and fraudulent individuals and ensure the protection of patients and colleagues' information.
In general, it may take the NHS 6 months to verify the identity of an overseas nurse, and the latest blockchain online platform can immediately eliminate these obstacles. This provides a way for suppliers to significantly shorten the recruitment time by up to 20-30 days by allowing healthcare recruitment employers to have access to a large number of selected and certified professionals, and qualified personnel can pass as quickly as possible Join after online screening.
protects patient data
In addition to patient safety, there is also concern about patient privacy, because telemedicine is not just a simple video call, the provider should also put data protection in the first place. The use of blockchain technology to protect patient medical records is not a new topic. However, it has not yet enabled medical institutions to keep up with technological progress on the path of digital development.
Some telemedicine services allow patients and doctors to share and store sensitive information, such as test results and x-rays. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt appropriate technologies to ensure that these records are protected.
This is where the use of blockchain should be achieved. The storage of data is decentralized without central control. No one has the right to tamper with the content, because each member must agree to its validity and can check the history of record changes .
protects patients
With the rapid growth of telemedicine, suppliers must ensure that they scale up responsibly to maintain reliable services. The previous focus was to continue to make appointments for patients to establish and run a service as soon as possible. Now the focus is to achieve a long-term solution that puts patients at the center of the service. When it comes to healthcare, patient safety should always beIt is the first, and blockchain technology has a clear role in many aspects of telemedicine.
