4. Future Directions
The next major advance in medical records is not going to be a new software program that runs on a database isolated within a single healthcare organization. The next advance will be the creation of a distributed ledger which will effectively transfer control of patient records from the healthcare organization to the individual. When medical records become as freely mobile as people, we will have made a tremendous leap forward in medicine. Blockchain technology is the key scientific breakthrough enabling this major step forward.
The process of making the medical records of individuals readily accessible requires the use of distributed databases stored on the cloud in a secure yet open manner. The records must be secure, immutable, and at the same time easily accessible. Blockchain technology is the vehicle that makes all of these goals possible (Krawiec et al., 2016).