The Prospects of Running a Business Based on NFTs in Healthcare

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have become a sensation in the digital realm at the moment. Despite the swinging market trends and regulatory pressure from around the world, NFTs have earned widespread popularity. According to Coinmarketcap.com, the NFT market cap currently stands at US$590.9 billion, racing toward the lucrative trillion-dollar mark, which provides enough proof that these tokens are here to change our lives for the better.

In addition, new fields are explored, with healthcare gaining more avenues to explore than the rest. The NFTs in the healthcare business model have attracted entrepreneurs wanting to make a real-life impact with this emerging technology. Let us detail the prospects the model holds for aspiring entrepreneurs.

NFTs in Healthcare: An Overview

NFTs in healthcare take a lot of versions, as many entrepreneurial minds come up with innovations that have the potential to revolutionize healthcare forever. As we know, NFTs are entries to the distributed ledger that cannot be modified once entered. Here, we should note that most NFTs are stored offline in decentralized storage solutions like IPFS (Interplanetary File Storage). Only a hash referring to the stored data is saved on-chain due to the memory sizes involved.

With healthcare NFTs, it is evident that there is a lot of data to be stored and processed. For instance, millions of dollars worth of medical documents are created every year in the USA alone, and the expenses are projected to grow per year.

But, most data isn’t saved in well-structured forms, leaving scope for ambiguity and unauthorized access by third parties. With NFTs for healthcare, though, such concerns can be eliminated from different fronts, which we will see further down the blog.

Which Applications Can NFTs in Healthcare Impact the Most?

As far as NFTs in healthcare are concerned, there are many fields that can benefit from the model. We will discuss them separately in the upcoming sections.

NFTs in Health Care Contents:

1. Supply Chain Management
2. Digital Twins
3. Virtual Healthcare Visits
4. Patient Data Management
5. Clinical Trial Management
6. Genomics

Supply Chain Management

NFTs have already benefited the overall supply chain management and logistics industry, and its healthcare arm isn’t an exception. A functional smart contract linked with manufacturers, distributors, healthcare providers, and patients.

NFTs, in this case, will be helpful for various stakeholders in the medical industry as they can view and verify inventory records, which can be crucial in reducing medical waste and associated expenses and easing the tracking process. Also, it becomes easy to find the source of error if unsavory outcomes are observed.

Digital Twins

As we know, digital twins refer to virtual simulations of real-world objects which can be experimented with extensively even before advancing processes in physical laboratories. These simulations play a crucial role in the healthcare industry, as a lot of regulatory and moral risks are involved with real-world testing. With digital twins, doctors, researchers, and trainee doctors can try out various surgeries and conduct studies without harming anyone.

Virtual Healthcare Visits

Through metaverses, it will become easy for patients to visit doctors on appointment. This can reduce logistical concerns for patients and menaces associated with crowd management for hospitals. Several healthcare providers have rolled out their metaverse versions that have gained considerable success in a short time. While this is an extension of telehealth, adding the immersive element brings many advantages to various medical fields.

Patient Data Management

As the starring use case of NFTs in healthcare, patient data management allows patients to mint their health records as NFTs. These platforms can serve as storage points, where healthcare providers and patients can access a patient’s data within a few clicks. This quickens medical treatments as concerns with physical bookkeeping or server storage of sensitive information are eliminated.

Clinical Trial Management

Clinical trial management is a pioneering use case. As we know, clinical trials are conducted on humans that involve many complexities and open points for data breaches. With NFTs that back the participants’ personal and test information, such concerns are eradicated.

Genomics For those unaware of what genomics is, it is an interdisciplinary biological field that focuses on studying human genomes that include the complete set of all DNAs. Data from genomic studies can be used to research genomes’ impact on interacting with other genes and the surrounding environment.

As a solution for finding cures for some of the world’s hard-to-cure diseases, genomic NFTs can bring a greater degree of security to patients. Genomic NFTs can be extremely useful, as these tend to have unique data that cannot be replicated, as it is stored on an immutable ledger.

Challenges One Might Encounter With NFTs in Healthcare (With Possible Solutions)

Despite giving a lot of promise, NFTs in healthcare present a few challenges today. The points below mention the pain points, along with possible solutions that can help ventures overcome them:

• Interoperating with Existing Systems will be the biggest challenge for any NFT business in healthcare, as the medical industry has grown on its own terms. While replacing existing systems at once wouldn’t be efficient, planning to do so in phases would be. Meanwhile, oracle networks can be used to establish interoperability for NFTs backing medical records and supply chain information.

• Concerns with Smart Contracts have been the most common hardship faced by healthcare NFT ventures. Loopholes often lead to data breaches that don’t sound good in a field like healthcare. As a solution, regular audits and rigorous testing can be performed to ensure the security of the platforms.

• Storage Requirements are a huge point to consider for any healthcare-based NFT venture, as there is simply a lot of data to be processed and held. As of now, blockchains cannot keep all data efficiently, which could lead to problems. Instead, businesses can opt for decentralized storage solutions like IPFS or Filecoin.

• Apart from storage, Processing Large Volumes of Medical Data on the blockchain is difficult in general. This can be resolved using various on-chain and off-chain scaling solutions.

Conclusion

Hence, we have seen how entrepreneurs can utilize the healthcare-based NFT business model. With many avenues available for them to tap into, the model enables them to find their niche in the relatively nascent field. We have also addressed the significant challenges they might face while implementing the model with the best possible solutions. Overall, NFTs for healthcare are set to change the medical field for the better in the coming decades.

Even you could be part of it if you are interested in building such a novel business platform. Begin BUIDL-ing now to earn a top spot in the global healthcare industry. The below quote from Corey Bridges, CEO of LifeMap Solutions, a while back, is still relevant in the NFT age and can serve as the motivation you’d needed to progress with your game-changing idea.

“That’s going to be the story for the next year or so: [digital health] moving from a curiosity, to a research tool, to an actual mainstream, accepted clinical tool. I think it’s very exciting.”