Lehigh County Health & Medicine Winter 2019 - 13

L C M E D S O C .O R G

nursing homes and patients. A healthcare
Private equity is buying into the healthcare
"blockchain" is a public wheel like a network industry and payers and providers are consolof computers connected by bridges, spokes, idating. This is not good for competition and
using a clearing house, the hub, that validates transparency. "Those who receive healthcare
sources and relays many transactions, auto- are rarely those who pay for it, which helps
matically. The data network has no single providers to be opaque about charges." (14)
point of failure. The math attempts to keep
everyone honest and the data live. The data
The elephant in the room is the more
cannot be altered without the cooperation, than $900 billion per year of healthcare
or hack, of the hub. (12)
"inefficiencies." Physicians hold the pen
that spends healthcare dollars. We can
A large Nashville-based health network do better. "...I swear by all the gods and
is using secure real time medical history goddesses, making them my witnesses, that
for individual patients and processing in- I will carry out, according to my ability and
surance claims. The system is reproducible judgment, this oath and this indenture...I
and eliminates verifying data from user to will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing
user. One report estimated that $1.5 billion and harm..." 275 A.D. (15)
healthcare cost a year could be saved using
this technology. (13)

REFERENCES
1. Wall Street Journal Dec. 6, 2019 pp. A6
2. Wall Street Journal Aug. 1, 2018 pp. A6
3. Wall Street Journal Jan 31, 2019 pp. pp A17
4. The economist Sept 7, 2019 p 27
5. Economist April 28, 2018, Asia pp.3-5
6. Arangio, G.A., Lehigh County Health & Medicine
Magazine, Summer 2018 p 28
7. Revolutionizing Healthcare, Forbes, Dec. 19, 2013
8. Jones, Laura et. al. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, July 22, 2018)
9. Economist June 30th, 3018, pp. 51-52
10. Wall Street Journal September 27, 2018 p. A13
11. Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2018 p A1
12. Block chain Technology A Step-by-Step Guide For
Beginners, blockgeeks.com, 2017
13. Wall Street Journal, Tomio Geron, May 29, 2018,
p. 14
14. Economist July 28, 2018 pp.54
15. Norman, Jeremy, HistoryofInformation.com, April
26, 2018

WINTER 2019 | Lehigh County Health & Medicine 13

http://www.LCMEDSOC.ORG http://www.blockgeeks.com http://www.HistoryofInformation.com

Lehigh County Health & Medicine Winter 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Lehigh County Health & Medicine Winter 2019