Can Blockchain Technology Change Contemporary Medicine as It is Currently Understood?

Albeit the best-known use of blockchainBlockchain technologyTechnology (BCT) is in the disciplineDiscipline of economics and cryptocurrenciesCryptocurrency in general, its suitability is broadening to other disciplinesDiscipline, including the biomedicalBiomedical field. The objectiveObjective of this chapterChapter is to review the role of BCT in medicineMedicine. BCT in the health field permits development of a stable and safe informationInformation set with which users can act with one another by way of transactionsTransaction of diverse classes. This context permits the accessAccess and operationOperation of clinical informationInformation without jeopardizing other sensitive dataData. Another significant advantage of BCT is that the whole systemSystem is decentralizedDecentralized and is conserved by the users themselves; therefore, it is not necessary to trustTrust organizations for depository. The blockchainBlockchain code is open source and can be utilized, changed and corrected by its users. BCT literatureLiterature is limited up to date. This chapterChapter narrates the fundamentals of this technologyTechnology and sums up the diverse points in which BCT could transform the epitome of contemporary medicineMedicine. The great potentiality of BCT, as its multiple roles in the disciplineDiscipline of health sciencesHealth sciences, comprises the spheres of legalLegal medicineMedicine, investigation, electronic medical recordsElectronic medical record, medical informationInformation analysisAnalysis (big dataBig data), educationEducation and the regulation of compensation for medical servicesService. If technological progress persists along these fields, it could result in a radical change in medicineMedicine as we understand it.