NFTs are just more than jpegs of animated monkeys wearing sunglasses and striped shirts in a digital art gallery. Many businesses, particularly the healthcare industry, are making use of its potential.
For those who are still not familiar with the phrase, blockchain technology is used to produce non-fungible tokens or NFTs.
As a platform for the purchase and sale of digital art protected by a digital contract, the technology first gained attention in the art world. Entrepreneurs are investigating whether NFT digital contracts are practical in more markets.
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NFTs have much greater potential than you might realise. They are being used in the healthcare sector and might provide patients ownership and control over their medical data. Who knows how?
Citizens may be able to track and manage who has access to their personal health details thanks to NFTs. It also assists patients in making money off of their health information and even blood.
Yes, you read that correctly. Users can now sell their medical and health data as NFT to pharmaceutical and other healthcare companies in order to profit financially.
To learn more about how NFTs are transforming the healthcare sector and how you can take ownership of your medical data and profit from it, keep reading this blog.
Potentials of NFTs in Healthcare
Let’s say you’ve made the decision to acquire a direct-to-consumer DNA testing kit so that a private company may create a nutrition plan specific to your genetic profile.
Additionally, you are aware that the latter could sell your genetic information to other parties for study. However, you decide to use the service anyhow because it’s the most precise approach to acquiring a customised diet at a reasonable cost.
The corporation, however, might make millions by selling your genetic information as well as that of other people, but they will never give it to you.
Additionally, the risk of the information being handled improperly grows as such sensitive data are transmitted through the transaction chain.
Now, if your genetic information were created as NFTs, it would have the ability to be tracked inherently. Since you are the exclusive owner of the data, as confirmed by the NFT authentication, you would be able to track its final destination and hold those who utilised it without your consent accountable.
The NFT owner can activate a function to make money each time a transaction using the data takes place.
Patients whose data are used by Ovia and 23andMe, for example, are not receiving any compensation from the businesses.
However, by providing their data and profiting from it, NFT-based businesses that provide digital health services could entice patients to engage in studies.
Patients could be contacted directly on a digital marketplace by other third parties interested in using the data for research or creating new products.
The main difference between this method and the conventional one is that patients actually do have the option to share their data in a more informed way.
The use of patient data might be made more transparent and give patients authority over their medical records with the help of the underlying blockchain technology and an NFT certification.
What possible role in healthcare could NFTs have?
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have the potential to revolutionise how people access their own medical records. Are you curious about how NFTs might significantly impact healthcare data?
NFTs can connect to the asset’s internet location via their distinctive identity. When used on medical data, the technology might de-identify patient-controlled copies of a person’s health records.
Patients are currently denied access to their own health records. Large corporations openly distribute and profit from the data.
These corporations are making millions of dollars without giving you a single penny by selling your genetic information.
Patients would gain ownership of their medical records thanks to the adoption of NFTs and its blockchain ledger.
Patients would also be able to monitor the sale of their data in this way, giving them the option to prevent it or sell it themselves.
Is the future of patient data with NFTs?
There are still many issues to be resolved with NFTs in healthcare. Clinical trials and hospital initiatives both currently use NFT technology.
The future or a fad for NFT in medicine?
There are some startups that are investigating the potential of NFT in the healthcare industry, even though much of it is still hypothetical at this stage.
Just like how some exchanges where NFTs can be bought, Aimedis is one such business that offers a medical NFT marketplace where people can take part in transactions involving their health information.
The Enjin and Health Hero-created Go! a health monitoring app can gather personal activity and wellness information from well-known applications like Apple Health, Google Fit, and Fitbit.
As a result, Well-being NFTs, or W-NFTs, are produced that are endowed with the rarity of the users’ health data assets. Even the open market can be used to trade these.
But there are various potential barriers that could prevent the widespread adoption of the technology in the near future, particularly in the field of healthcare.
Blockchain technology currently operates fairly inefficiently, requiring significant energy even for little transactions.
Significant greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change, are also linked to this. NFTs could not be completely commercially feasible as a result in the near future.
However, there is a substitute for NFT Minting Website that may only require a small portion of the processing power now used in their transactions.
The question of whether businesses providing digital health services will genuinely want to utilise the technology is another concern.
Given that businesses have historically made money off of patients rather than the other way around, they may not be all that interested in sharing their earnings with them.
Conclusion
The adoption of NFTs use in the healthcare sector is still in the early stages and its is transforming the way how patients can sell their medical and healthcare data as NFT to make money
Considering that NFTs are still susceptible to data and security issues, this could be difficult as well. Additionally, there is still a lack of understanding of intellectual property problems. Researchers still think they could revolutionise the healthcare sector, nevertheless.
Author Bio: Suzanne Dieze is a technical content writer and preferably writing technology-based blogs and articles. I have a few published pieces under Mobile Based Applications, and Data science consists of proven techniques, future costs, and benefits.