Blockchain has the potential to transform healthcare in general and the pharmacy supply chain in particular.
The distributed ledger technology could offer legislative, logistical and patient safety benefits for pharmaceutical supply chain management. From a regulatory perspective in the United States, blockchain technological and structural capabilities, in fact, extraordinarily map to the key requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act.
The DSCSA outlines a 10-year timeframe that will require elements including medication track-and-trace, product verification and notification of stakeholders about illegitimate drugs. A shared ledger of information to enable each of these steps is a foundational aspect of blockchain technology.
"Logistically, blockchain aligns well with federal efforts like the National Strategy for Global Chain Security," said Kevin Clauson, Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Lipscomb University. "One of the most promising benefits of blockchain from a patient safety perspective is to help stem the tide of the so-called SSFFC medicines - substandard, spurious, falsely labeled, falsified and counterfeit - that continue to plague the pharmaceutical supply chain."
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Improving data integrity
Depending on the specific blockchain protocol employed and its accompanying features, the immutable nature of blockchain could enhance data integrity, thereby reducing the load on data stewardship functions.
Acknowledging that the aforementioned benefits are still theoretical in nature, Lipscomb University's Clauson said that half-a-dozen companies have for the past few years been working on blockchain-enabled Drug Supply Chain Security Act compliance platforms. Those include BlockVerify, iSolve/BlockRx, Chronicled, The LinkLab, Modum, and Vechain.
Blockchain holds great promise for the pharmacy supply chain, as it does for other healthcare applications. It's early days, but the great potential of blockchain may move more companies into the fold.
As the United State's national healthcare expenses keep rising, "most ideas are adding cost or nibbling around the edges of the existing cost structure," Hashed Health's Ward said. "Blockchain is a once in a generation opportunity to cut up to a third out of the middle. Nothing else comes close to blockchain's potential."
Source: Healthcare IT News (View full article)
Posted by Dan Corcoran on December 13, 2017 06:41 AM
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