Essay Sample on Current Trends in Computer Science and IT

Digital technology entails capturing, storing as well and exchanging data securely and at fast speeds. The popularity and efficiency of digital technology have grown expansively in the past and today, digitized technologies are utilized in almost all sectors of the global economies. Nevertheless, digitalized trust among users of data has significantly declined due to emergent information risks such as cyber hacking. Nevertheless, to address the stated issue, the concept of blockchain technologies has been developed to allow persons who have common interests but lack trust in one another, to collaborate in the creation of a lasting, unalterable, and explicit record of the exchange and processing of information while eliminating reliance on a centralized authority.

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Blockchain Technology

Blockchain technology is among the fast-moving Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies that are expected to radically change the way electronic medical records are stored, accessed as well as updated. The data stored in a blockchain is dependent on the classifications or the purpose of information needed by a user. The common advantages associated with blockchain technologies include enhanced data security, reduced data storage, and retrieval cost, as well as enhanced traceability of data in a data network. In the healthcare sector, blockchain technology reduces the burden of sharing and relaying of patient records among data users while at the same time creating a better gateway to patient data and information.

Application of Blockchain Technology in the Healthcare Sector

Blockchain is a ledger technology that is dependent on how a user’s identity is defined within the network. Such identity could either be a permissioned or permissionless blockchain system. Permissionless blockchain system is one in which the participants’ identities are anonymous or in form of pseudonymous which means that users are allowed to hide their identity or use a false name (Dubovitskaya et al. 2018). Also, in the stated type of blockchains, the system users are allowed to affix new blocks to a ledger in order to enhance the quality of information being stored.

Contrary, permissioned blockchain systems involve the control of users’ identities by an identity provider. In this case, an identity provider should be a reliable and trusted person mandated with the control of access within a data network. Moreover, the identity provider also determines the users’ rights regarding participation in consensus and validates the affixation of new blocks by users to the ledger. In this case, the users’ identities are not hidden and are always revealed to the identity server whenever a user takes an action within the network.

Electronic Medical records (EMRs) are all highly sensitive and confidential information in healthcare institutions that are constantly shared among healthcare providers at all times. In this context, Blockchain technology offers a great opportunity towards the establishment of safe, staunch, and foolproof EMR information management and sharing system. According to El-Gazar & Stendal (2020), Private permissioned blockchain technology would be the perfect option to build this kind of a data-sharing system because it guarantees the safety of sensitive patient data and gives clients a chance to manage their own medical information.

In countries where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is enforceable, like the European Union (EU), private permissioned blockchains may have positive support on patient data protection regulations. Additionally, this is due to the presence of a centralized authority controlling data networks as well as access to personal medical information in the healthcare institutions. Patients’ sensitive medical data needs pseudonymization in cases where it has to be shared for the purpose of supporting healthcare research, so as to ensure that it is adequately protected (El-Gazar & Stendal, 2020). However, this poses the risk of re-identification which involves the linking of the pseudonym code or metadata to the health data of the patient.

Use of Blockchain Technology in Promoting EMR Security

EMR security is an integral practice in the healthcare sector, which must be enforced to promote the overall ethicality of the medical practice among healthcare practitioners. In this case, blockchain technology has created a new apparatus of trust and the creation of value-oriented relationships between patients, health centers, and medical research organizations. Additionally, this has been achieved through the enhancement of security, privacy, confidentiality as well as decentralization of EMRs, through the efficiency of blockchain technologies. According to research executed by Shahnaz, Qamar, and Khalid (2019), a blockchain system has been certified as a tamper-proof technology whose main features enable protection of medical records, which is essential in the treatment operations in healthcare institutions.

Decentralization is also one of the key features of blockchain, which facilitates the distribution of medical data and information across a network as opposed to having it concentrated in one centralized access point. Additionally, this means that information that was previously localized in one point within a network is now capable of being handled by numerous trusted persons through a consensus on control, which is reached upon by apportioned input via the network nodes. Decentralization’s major contribution to medical records protection is that it enables the elimination of third-parties in reaching a consensus among peers thus evading performance tailbacks and system failure at a single point.

The stated process ensures that data and information can be shared directly from one person to another, and as such significantly reduce the chance of leakage or unwarranted modification of data, either intentionally or unintentionally. Moreover, blockchain technology ensures that there is transparency in the sharing of data through an end-to-end encrypted network, which boosts the security of the records shared among users in a healthcare information network. Subsequently, this makes such shared medical files secure from distortion by third parties. For instance, any slight unauthorized changes to blockchain medical data are easily detected and all members within a network can detect such changes.

In blockchain technology, patients can also gain control over their medical records, which facilitates accelerated usage of shared anonymous clients’ health data for treatment by physicians. Also, blockchain systems in healthcare data networks feature a patient control-and-consent platform, which permits patients to get a better medical care experience. Additionally, that is through offering patients the power to give and record data access authorization, before any of their personal EMR are shared with physicians or authorized third parties. For instance, once the patient has authorized an authorized person to use their data for treatment preparation, a blockchain system can spontaneously write in code for approval and then creates a record of consent transaction.

What Can be Done to Realize Full Potential of Blockchain in Protecting EMR

Since the application of blockchain technology in healthcare is relatively new, feasibility studies and proof-of-concept processes are still in their early stages. The inherent weaknesses, challenges, and loopholes in the technology have to be properly addressed if the full benefits of using this form of technology are to be realized. Additionally, blockchain technology is able to store blocks of electronic medical records as well as associated metadata adjoined to sensitive patient data stored in a secure cloud. Subsequently, this will enable blockchain technology to introduce a veneer of interoperability in the hospital’s current medical records systems.

Subsequently, this will result in the migration of EMR data handling procedures in using blockchain data processing applications. Additionally, this will also address the problem of the traditional institution-centered EMR system where different information systems and software applications are able to exchange data and communicate without much involvement of the patient concerned. Furthermore, blockchain systems will push towards patient-centered interoperability whereby the health data exchange is patient-mediated as well as patient-driven thus setting a new pace in forms of data sharing in the medical sector. Nevertheless, despite this potentially beneficial shift, patient-driven interoperability brought about by blockchain technology, the new data handling system has some challenges that are associated with security, privacy as well as governance.

Use of Blockchain Technologies In Promoting HIPAA Compliance

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was enacted by the United States in 1996. Additionally, HIPAA sets the standards for the protection of sensitive patient data in the clinical environment. The increasing need for the use of blockchain technology in healthcare goes hand-in-hand with the need to ensure compliance with existing regulations. HIPAA bars the application of math-based encryption of health-protected data since the coded information can be re-identified. The use of blockchain in the storage and dissemination of Protected Health Information (PHI) may pose challenges to the five rules of HIPAA.

In this case, that is because HIPAA compliance can be promoted by medical practitioners only if medical events are recorded in the blockchain ledger and not exposed to third parties or nonauthorized persons. The access to PHI, automation of health-related notifications delivery and provisioning of remotely-operated patient monitoring systems will also enhance the security compliance of patients’ sensitive data as per the HIPAA guidelines (Griggs et al., 2018). Also, the unique identifiers of patient data in healthcare settings can be enabled via blockchain’s Hyperledger feature and introducing anonymizers to increase difficulties PHI exposure to unauthorized persons, which is in line with the HIPAA provisions.

Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) as well as machine learning are classifications of computer sciences which are related. Additionally, the two computers sciences are measured to be among the recently emerging technologies that are employed for creating intelligent systems. Today, AI has become a way to create intelligent machines with the capability to simulate human thinking capacity, behavior as well as intelligence. In today’s contemporary society, AI and machine learning technologies are being adopted and utilized in various aspects of life, such as in executing internet searches and performing facial recognition. As such, machine learning and AI are essential technologies that will have a positive impact on how various functions in society are executed.