As the healthcare market struggles to find a trade-off between the risk and reward of going digital, the potential application of Blockchain technology provides a timely solution to mitigate some of its pressing needs around trust and security with digital workflows. A Blockchain (or DLT) is a new data structure that creates trusted, distributed digital ledgers for assets and other data. It is an immutable record of digital events shared peer to peer between different parties. It can only be updated by the consensus of a majority of the participants in the system and, once entered, the information is very hard to erase.

While relatively immature, Blockchain in healthcare is slowly staring to migrate from pilot Proof of Concept (PoC) to select Business-to-business (B2B) commercial, demonstrating initial Return on Investments (ROIs) across enterprise-level B2B-focused initiatives. This will lure early adopters that have waited, to finally jump on board, creating the much-needed network effect in the healthcare space. Frost & Sullivan estimates the global Blockchain technology market in the healthcare industry to cross $500 million by 2022, growing at a CAGR of 61.4% between 2018 and 2022. Health insurance payers, providers and pharma companies are expected to be the early adopters of Blockchain systems compared to other healthcare industry stakeholders.

Research Scope
This study aims to decipher the hype versus reality for Blockchain technology application in the healthcare space by analyzing the current vendor landscape, funding trends, and commercial adoption by key healthcare stakeholders globally. As a part of this study, Frost & Sullivan’s research team analyzed more than 250 vendors to understand their Blockchain products/solutions/projects’ functional and application focus for the healthcare industry. To estimate the Blockchain market size and future projection, a global analysis of current commercial deployments, major industry collaboration (consortia/working groups) on pilot projects, and funding trends have been undertaken.

Research Benefits
The main purpose of this study is to analyze and call out key growth opportunities for Blockchain technology’s application in the healthcare industry. Select examples of current Blockchain technology’s commercial deployments and major pilot projects across the identified top-5 growth opportunities in the healthcare space have been provided. Frost & Sullivan performed a qualitative factor analysis by evaluating critical attributes to assess the ‘Market Readiness’ and ‘Future Industry Value’ for the identified growth opportunities in the healthcare space. The study also provides an assessment of emerging Blockchain vendor solutions, commercial partnerships/consortia to watch for, and select case studies for the identified top-5 growth opportunities. Finally, it summarizes the key success factors and strategic imperatives for Blockchain’s commercial deployment consideration in the healthcare space.

Key Issues Addressed

  • What are the key growth opportunities for Blockchain technology applications in the healthcare industry?
  • What are the top-5 use cases within healthcare that are ripe for innovation and can be transformed using Blockchain technology?
  • How does the vendor ecosystem for healthcare Blockchain look like? What are the select companies and consortia to action by major Blockchain use cases in healthcare?
  • What are some of the major commercial deployments and pilot projects by top growth opportunities?
  • How big is the Blockchain technology market in healthcare? How it is projected to grow in next few years?
  • What are some of the Blockchain commercial deployment considerations?
  • What are the critical success factors, challenges, and strategic imperatives for considering Blockchain applications in the healthcare space?