Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay, Vice-President, Customer Experience, Dhiway highlights that blockchain technology, built on the foundation of transparency, immutability, and decentralisation, presents an innovative approach to address the medical supply chain’s challenges
Supply chains are complex endeavors; today, healthcare and medical supply chain participants face numerous challenges. The timely and efficient delivery of essential medications, equipment and other healthcare products is crucial for healthcare services. And this is now powered by sharing transactional data such as orders, inventory levels and events such as consignments being loaded or received at a particular location. This traditional approach to supply chain management often needs help with issues like missing or misplaced information packets, lack of transparency, inefficient tracking and counterfeiting. The introduction of blockchain technology in digital supply chain management has the potential to address these challenges while making the system exchange context-based information related to the management of risks.
A recent Gartner report projects that by 2025, more than 40 per cent of the leaders responsible for supply chain operations will invest in applications and services that use blockchain technology as an authentic data platform to enable real-time data exchange. As more machine-to-machine digital data exchange dominates the supply chain ecosystems, the need to orchestrate IT strategy for efficiency, innovation, risk management and purpose becomes the critical contributor to the adoption of blockchain.
The medical supply chain involves a series of interconnected steps, including manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, transportation, and delivery of medical products to healthcare providers and patients. This complex mesh of participants and stakeholders also means numerous challenges plague it. Counterfeit drugs infiltrating the supply chain pose a significant risk to patient safety, as they may lack efficacy or contain harmful substances. Inefficient tracking and poor visibility into inventory levels can lead to stockouts or excess inventory, resulting in increased costs and compromised patient care. Additionally, opaque pricing structures and data silos contribute to the lack of transparency, hindering fair market practices.
Blockchain technology, built on the foundation of transparency, immutability, and decentralisation, presents an innovative approach to address the medical supply chain’s challenges.
Enhanced traceability and transparency
Blockchain enables the creation of an immutable and transparent ledger, where each transaction or movement of a medical product is recorded as a block. These blocks are linked in a chain, creating a comprehensive audit trail of the entire supply chain journey. This transparency empowers stakeholders to track and verify medical products’ authenticity, quality, and provenance in real-time. Counterfeit products can be swiftly identified and removed from circulation, ensuring patient safety.
Multi-party governance processes and supply chain efficiency
By leveraging multi-party governance workflows, a blockchain automates and streamlines various aspects of the medical supply chain. The disintermediation enabled by blockchain technology reduces administrative burdens, paperwork, and associated costs. Blockchain also facilitates accurate demand forecasting, optimising inventory management and reducing stockouts or excess inventory. This not only improves supply chain efficiency but also minimises waste and ensures the availability of critical medical supplies when and where they are needed.
Enhanced security and data integrity:
Data security and integrity are paramount in the medical supply chain. Blockchain’s cryptographic features ensure that sensitive medical information, including patient data and supply chain transactions, remains secure and tamper-proof. Encrypted records stored on the blockchain cannot be altered or manipulated without consensus from the network participants, providing an additional layer of protection against data breaches and unauthorised access.
Interoperability and collaboration:
The medical supply chain involves multiple stakeholders, each utilizing different systems and databases. Blockchain technology facilitates interoperability by creating a decentralized platform enabling seamless data exchange and collaboration between parties. By eliminating data silos and ensuring data consistency, blockchain promotes efficient information sharing, simplifies regulatory compliance, and strengthens stakeholder collaboration.
Some real-world implementations, such as MediLedger, PharmaLedger, MedRec etc, have demonstrated various benefits gained by using blockchain as the foundation for incubating digital trust ecosystems in this space.
While blockchain holds tremendous potential for transforming medical supply management, several challenges must be addressed for widespread adoption.
Integration with legacy systems: Many healthcare organisations have legacy systems incompatible with blockchain technology. Integrating blockchain into these systems requires careful planning, investment, and stakeholder collaboration to ensure a seamless transition.
Regulatory and legal considerations: Implementing blockchain in the medical supply chain must comply with regulatory and legal frameworks. Standards and guidelines must be developed to ensure data privacy, security, and compliance with industry regulations.
Interoperability and standardisation: Achieving interoperability and standardisation across data platforms and healthcare systems remains challenging. To ensure seamless data exchange and compatibility, collaborative efforts are required to establish common protocols, frameworks, and data standards.
The medical supply chain is ready to be reimagined and reshaped for the future. And blockchain technology offers a promising solution to its long-standing challenges. Blockchain can revolutionise how medical products are manufactured, distributed, and delivered through enhanced transparency, traceability, security, and efficiency. By looking at tokenless blockchain implementations that provide unique, persistent identifiers to reference records, it is possible to create dynamic and authenticated data registries, resulting in better data governance and mitigating the risks associated with data breaches. However, widespread adoption will require collaboration, standardisation, and investment from all stakeholders. As blockchain continues to evolve, it holds the potential to enhance patient safety, optimise inventory management, reduce costs, and ultimately improve healthcare outcomes on a global scale.