Blockchain technology is a by-product of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. For a long time since then, it has been used only in the finance sector. But owing to its various desirable properties its use is now being explored in other areas as well. Healthcare is one such space where blockchain is in its trial phase. The sector is using the technology to manage electronic health record data, track clinical trials and stop counterfeit drugs and medical equipment. According to a survey by WHO, 1 in 10 medical products in low and middle-income countries is substandard or falsified. These products include medicines, vaccines, and in-vitro diagnostics. Among medicines, antimalarials, and antibiotics are most commonly reported substandard. Manufacturers and distributors of fake drugs have easy access to the global market using the internet. Counterfeit drugs cause a great deal of damage to the medical and pharmaceutical industries, compromise brand integrity, and jeopardizes consumer health and safety. A blockchain-based solution can make a substantial difference in this concern. It can bring the traceability required to track drugs from origin to customers. In this article, we will see why and how such a solution would work. Issues with Tracking Drugs in the Existing System With the current management system in the medical supply chain, it is difficult to keep track of the supplies. The supply chain is siloed, fragmented and opaque. Each party controls their data and there is no interoperability to provide transparency in the system. There is no standard system for keeping data in-sync across the healthcare supply chain. This makes it difficult to keep track of medical supplies and drugs. Counterfeit drugs find it easy to make their way at any stage in the supply chain and can cause serious health implications. Such fraudulent drugs can be of low quality, substandard, contaminated, have wrong ingredients, and counterfeit logos. The drug ingredients could have come from an uncertified source. These drugs are difficult to detect and remove once they come into circulation. Owing to high demands and less supply in the current times of the Covid-19 crisis, the market is filled with fake protective gear, fake drugs, and supplements. Online order of pharmaceuticals through sellers offering discounts and offers poses more risk of selling counterfeit products. Such fraudulent drugs pose a threat to peoples’ lives. In safe cases, they may not have any effect but in worse cases, they can lead to serious health consequences such as death. A large amount of money is being spent on anti-counterfeit measures by pharmaceutical companies. Why Blockchain Is Best Among Other Technologies? Blockchain is a decentralized ledger and is not controlled by a single party. It is public and accessible to all network participants. The records once entered remain in the ledger forever, and it is computationally impossible to temper with them. So it can be used as a transparent and tamper-proof record of each time the drug changes hands. Its transparency and visibility to authorized parties make fraud detection in the health care supply chain easy. Blockchain limits the involvement of 3rd parties in the cycle. It brings transparency for all stakeholders in the supply chain. It traces and tracks drug delivery at every step and reduces the possibility of fraud. In this system, customers can verify the authenticity of the drugs they have purchased. They can verify the origin of the drugs by using an easy-to-use system – scanning barcodes from packaging and getting the relevant product details. This helps in building trust among the consumers and ensures the genuineness of drugs. Technological Advancements in Supply Chain Management Blockchain is compatible with RFID, GPS, and IoT technologies. Integration of blockchain and these technologies into existing systems can be used by companies to monitor a product’s life cycle. This will provide an easy-to-detect point of entry of fake products in the system. Also, using tracking capabilities of IoT and GPS and maintaining conditions on the blockchain, cold chain shipping can be ensured for maintaining the efficacy of drugs. So, blockchain makes it possible to examine vulnerable points in the supply chain and fix it. How Blockchain Can be the Solution? All parties in the drug supply chain must be onboard for the integration of blockchain. It has to be integrated with GPS and IoT devices to track location and temperature. It is an expensive process and brings fundamental changes to the supply chain. Pharmaceutical companies have to collaborate with a number of other parties like logistics providers, distributors, hospitals, and consumers to design and work with such a system. Such systems mostly use private blockchains to ensure the privacy of sensitive medical data. Roles and functionalities are defined for different stakeholders. Access controls are maintained by rules defined in smart contracts to maintain the privacy of data. Blockchain-Based Counterfeit Drugs Tracking The required entities or nodes … Continued
The post How Blockchain Can Counter the Menace of Counterfeit Drugs appeared first on Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform.
from Live Crypto News – Cryptoknowmics-Crypto News and Media Platform
