How can Blockchain Revolutionize Healthcare?

The blockchain technology has been generating plenty of buzz across industries even before its commercial rollout. This much-hyped technology has been grabbing newspaper headlines although it is still a long way from being ready for commercial adoption. In fact, a recent study by Infosys and LTP revealed that the commercial adoption of blockchain technology is unlikely to happen at least until 2020.

There is also confusion in some quarters, if not everywhere about what this technology is all about? Blockchain is a decentralized ledger that records and stores every transaction across a peer-to-peer network. It stands out for data integrity, networked immutability and for being tamper-proof.

There is a lot of talk and activity in the industry around the disruptive nature of blockchain and its possible impact on businesses. The big question is: How can blockchain revolutionize the healthcare industry? It is perhaps too early to make an emphatic statement but one cannot overlook the new possibilities this technology will present for the healthcare industry. Blockchain-powered health IT systems can facilitate health data interoperability, data integrity and security, portable user-owned data among others. What’s more, blockchain could ensure cryptographically secure and irrevocable data exchange systems. Leveraging such a technology will ensure seamless access to historic and real-time patient data and eliminate data reconciliation costs. A classic example of blockchain technology in the healthcare space could be the recent collaboration (on a trial basis) between data-centric security company Guardtime and Estonian eHealth Foundation to secure the health records of one million Estonian citizens. But such a model is unlikely to be replicated globally given the complexities surrounding data ownership and governance structure for health data exchange between public and private entities.

Claims adjudication and billing management is another area where blockchain can transform the operating ways of the healthcare industry. It is estimated that around 5-10% of healthcare costs are fraudulent owing to excessive billing or billing for non-performed services. One can recall the Medicare fraud in the US that caused around $30 million in losses in 2016. Blockchain-enabled systems have the potential to automate the majority of claim adjudication and payment processing activities and minimize these medical billing-related frauds. Not just that, blockchain systems could help to root out the need for intermediaries and trim administrative costs for providers and payers.

Pharmaceutical companies have been incurring an estimated annual loss of $200 billion owing to sale of counterfeit drugs. Blockchain can play a significant part in ensuring drug supply chain integrity. This technology can facilitate a chain-of-custody log, tracking each step of the supply chain at the individual drug/product level. Furthermore, add-on functionalities such as private keys and smart contracts could help build proof of ownership of the drug source at any point in the supply chain and manage the contracts between different parties. Take the case of iSolve LCC that is currently working with multiple pharma/biopharma companies to implement its Advanced Digital Ledger Technology (ADLT) blockchain solutions to help manage drug supply chain integrity.

This technology can be leveraged to cope with unreported clinical trials that can create patient safety issues and knowledge gaps for healthcare stakeholders and health policymakers. Blockchain-enabled, time-stamped immutable records of clinical trials, protocols and results could potentially address the issues of outcome switching, data snooping and selective reporting, thereby reducing the incidence of fraud and error in clinical trial records. Blockchain-based systems could help drive unprecedented collaboration between participants and researchers around medical research innovation in fields like precision medicine and population health management.

Health data breaches are a huge concern in the healthcare industry. According to the Protenus Breach Barometer report, as many as 450 health data breaches occurred in 2016, affecting over 27 million patients. The blockchain technology can avoid such breaches due to hacking and ransomware.

Given the current growth of connected health devices, the existing Health IT infrastructure and architecture will find it highly challenging to support the evolving IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) ecosystems. It is estimated that 20-30 billion healthcare IoT connected devices will be used globally by 2020. Blockchain-enabled solutions can bridge the gaps of device data interoperability and ensure data security, privacy and reliability around IoMT use cases. Companies such as Telstra (user biometrics and smart homes), IBM (cognitive Internet of Things) and Tierion (industrial medical device preventive maintenance) are actively working around these use cases.

One would stop short of suggesting that blockchain will revolutionize the healthcare industry but there is no denying the fact that this technology will drive enhanced operational efficiency of healthcare players. Bring on blockchain! The healthcare industry across the globe is excited to embrace it!

Will Automation Turn Out to be a Serious Worry for Indian IT Industry?

Automation is one thing that sets tongues wagging in the Indian information and technology (IT) industry – the big question that is asked: How much deeper will ‘automation’ penetrate the country’s lucrative IT industry? Well, the $160 billion Indian IT industry has witnessed ‘effective’ implementation of automation, which has paved the way for companies to not just scale up productivity but also to remain cost-efficient. A market replete with cut-throat competition, Indian IT companies are feeling the ‘pressure’ to protect their margins and are increasingly using automation platforms to improve their profitability.

The so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ based platforms are changing the way IT firms manage their day-to-day affairs. Wipro became the first Indian IT services firm to launch an artificial intelligence platform – Holmes – last year. TCS launched its artificial intelligence platform – Ignio – while Infosys rolled out its artificial intelligence platform – Mano. The objective of IT firms is to achieve non-linear growth – growing revenue at a much faster pace than the number of employees. Thus increasing both revenue per employee and profitability.

The effective use of automation is seen as a ‘big disruptive threat’ to the Indian IT industry’s pyramid model, where companies generate revenue in a linear manner by adding employees. And as the current trend suggests, non-linear growth will be the main focus area of IT companies.

The use of automation platforms has been yielding positive results for IT companies. The industry added 200,000 employees in FY16 as compared to 230,000 in FY15. This is an ample indication that automation is beginning to replace jobs that were earlier done by humans. It also tells something about the future. The industry expects to add around 200,000 employees for FY17 – precisely the same number of employees added in FY 16.

According to a report released by Centrum Broking, the country’s top five IT companies have substantially reduced their hiring in 2015 by ‘aggressively walking the automation path’. The report further revealed that the combined net additions of employees of IT behemoths like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Cognizant during the October-December period stood at 28,182, down 38 per cent from the year-ago period.

There is no denying the fact that automating tasks previously done by engineers has caused jitters among the Indian IT workforce. The general line of thought is that automation will kill jobs done by humans. The Indian IT industry is expected to witness a dynamic shift over the next five to seven years. If experts are to be believed, the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence platforms will create higher demand for up-skilled engineers in niche areas. Industry watchers believe the need for up-skilled engineers will result in a steady decrease in demand for entry-level or lower-level engineers for tasks such as coding, back office maintenance and applications testing.

According to Malcolm Frank, executive vice-president of strategy and marketing at IT bellwether Cognizant, automation is yet unlikely to derail the traditional manpower-linked model of the IT sector, whose employee base touched 3.7 million in FY16. “To say that a significant portion of the industry will be automated, I think that’s more theory than reality. I can tell you this, it’s not gonna happen in the next three years,” he had said during an interview on the sidelines of the Nasscom India Leadership Forum in Mumbai.

One also has to understand that automation simply does not mean ‘sacking people and rendering them out of job’. The adoption of automation not only throws an opportunity for companies to optimize talent (within the organization) but also enables them to drive more innovation and to increase revenue per employee.

Automation is clearly the way forward for the Indian IT industry – the IT workforce will need to diversify beyond their ‘core skills’ and add new and ‘industry relevant’ skill sets.

Organizations Jumping on Analytics Bandwagon to Improve Worker-Manager Relationship

Improving worker-manager relationship is always an ‘everyday challenge’ for corporate enterprises. It is a ‘given’ that the all-out focus of companies across the globe is to optimise productivity of employees and in facilitating the same firms are willing to walk the extra mile to bring about a certain ‘desired’ level of worker-manager relationship without any trust deficit. No wonder, corporate enterprises are fast jumping on the analytics bandwagon to skirt any worker-manager confrontations or unease as one may call it.

Companies see analytics tools as the way forward, as they help mitigate potential worker-manager trouble. Many firms are using an assessment tool called Predictive Index (PI) that generates a behavioural profile and provides an accurate depiction of an employee’s work preferences among others. So how does this predictive analytics works? Predictive analytics conducts a psychometric test of an employee to assess his natural behaviour. The results of such a test are assessed by trained analysts and provide an overview of an employee’s behaviour patterns along with his management and influencing skills.

Predictive analytics has helped bridge any gaps between workers and managers. According to a leading Indian newspaper, a senior manager of a company was feeling tremendous work stress. Nobody would have known the stress levels of this manager but the company could initiate timely corrective measures thanks to predictive analytics. Predictive Index analysis revealed that the manager was increasingly under stress after his reporting manager was recently changed.

Similarly, predictive analytics again came in handy at a manufacturing company, where PI analysis revealed that the morale of a team was very low. The company carried out a probe and found that the team had issues with their manager.

These two incidents clearly bring to the fore corrective measures initiated by companies with help of predictive analytics. Such measures, if taken at the right time, can not only help companies retain their employees but also ensure employee productivity is optimised.

The Predictive Strategy Group – a company that conducts such analysis for companies – summed up fittingly, terming the Predictive Index as a human blood test. “"Predictive Index is like a blood test -getting to know about a disease even before the symptoms have become visible to all," the Predictive Strategy Group’s co-founder Vinaya Bansal once famously said.

It is abundantly clear that Predictive Index analysis helps minimise damage in worker-manager relationships. Such analysis is not just limited to improving worker-manager relationships – it also helps companies to zero in on a right candidate as well as in offering promotion to an employee.

The importance of analytics tools will only increase going forward and companies are going to richly benefit from it in their pursuit of facilitating a vibrant work environment coupled with optimising productivity of employees.