Blockchain and AI for sustainable healthcare
Abstract
The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain is transforming the medical sector on its head unprecedented possibilities to establish sustainable, efficient, and patient-centered health systems. This chapter discusses how the characteristics of the decentralized, immutable design of blockchain conform to the ability of AI to perform forecasting analysis and planning. Through this, strengths of integrating a high-priority medical model coupled with a resource distribution model become real in solving systems issues in healthcare. The first purpose is met by AI technology that can accomplish the task of augmented diagnosis, the individual treatment plan, and operational efficiencies, whereas blockchain can guarantee a secure and transparent interoperation of health data between large groups of fragmented clients. All these technologies combined will instill confidence in every stakeholder and enable citizens to manage their personal health records. This combination too is highly promising for programs of public good—indeed it renders real-time feedback of diseased regions a reality. By this means, decentralized clinical trials will be able to travel to the field and the hard-to-reach communities will have equal access to healthcare. The chapter also ends with presenting the practical success and policy implications of the twin tech system model. Of special interest is the issue of how and whether AI technologies supported by blockchain can be used to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in particular, SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being. Making the chapter relevant to the ecological concepts, the authors suggest the healthcare reform process in which all actors are included in order to establish healthcare ecological system. Also based on thorough analysis and case studies the chapter further establishes that the integration of blockchain and AI has tremendous potential to develop a resilient and comprehensive healthcare ecological network.
