Page - 111 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

It shouldbecriticallynoted that there isnotyet a standard for storingpatientdata in the blockchain and that this can probably only be developed by a consortiumof relevant, globally active players in the health industry or even theWHO. In this case, a federated blockchain would have to be used. It is therefore fundamentally questionable whether individual companies without certification—it may be that MedBlockwill receive one in the future—will achieve a high reach in thefield of healthcare and blockchain. Given thedisadvantagesof ablockchain, asdiscussedabove, it is debatablewhy the business model should not be implementable with a cloud-based, encrypted database; this would simplify the desired data analysis in particular, but would possibly be less performant. It is also questionablewhat happens to patient data if the private keys are lost. MedBlock itself provides a solution by enabling patient-side authentication via fingerprint. The combination of data analysis— whether blockchain-based or not—and treatment methods seems particularly interesting: evaluated data could possibly also contain informationonmore precise (surgical) procedures that robots would be able to perform much better than humans. Amajor advantage of a blockchain-based solution is that intermediaries are no longer necessary, thereby strengthening the direct doctor–patient relation- ship. All in all, the company appears to be still at the beginning of its business activities, which is not unusual given the novelty of the technologies and the associated problems to be solved. 5 Conclusion The topic of digital services has already been established in social and scientific discourse for several years, and the blockchain technology is increasingly gaining profound interdisciplinary attention. The growth in interest in the blockchain technology is shown for instance by the worldwide patent applications with blockchain reference per year, which are rapidly increasing since 2013 and have tripled from2017 to 2018 (IPlytics 2019). So far, however, a linking consideration of these two technological currents has been largely overlooked. This chapter counters this desideratum by highlighting relevant terms using the example of online consultations, especially in the healthcare sector and the possibilities of creatingandmaintainingdata security through theblockchain.Thisnewtechnology makes it possible for thefirst time inhistory to increase the security level througha technically (or at leastorganisationally)decentralisedsolution, as securityno longer needs to be centrally placed in an institution (Wildhaber 2016; Tapscott and Tap- scott 2018). Transparent end-client communication regarding the functionality of the system, the technical background, and the various user groups that have access to thedata are essential in this context.Most importantly, the systemmustbe easily accessible for a user, trivially usable (UX) and highly trustworthy.Ultimately, it is particularly the users who are strengthened by the inclusion of a blockchain in digital services: they are given more control over their personal data and the Blockchain as an Approach for Secure Data… 115