Hello Cardano Team,
To the best of my ability I will try to keep this project suggestion to the basics and not go too deeply into the nursing/ healthcare informatics or healthcare politics. Also, this is a heavily based in the US systems as a suggestion and I am unsure of how this would apply internationally as care systems across the world vary greatly.
It is no secret in the medical field that a lot of healthcare workers have become unhappy with their work within the current structures; lack of care, financial incentives, follow through, bending of union contracts, in effective union follow through, forced in to unsafe conditions, and feeling of being let down by advocacy organizations has caused many to leave the field, seek travel/ contracted work, or attempt to start their own consultation groups. This problem will soon be exacerbated in the near future as larger healthcare organizations try to consolidate after loss and closure of brick and mortar sites happen become more frequent and larger organizations absorb small failing ones. This will further cause job dissatisfaction with healthcare workers that have already been through so much at this time as well as decrease access to care for many Americans. There is a lot of desire to have more control and freedom of practice, however regulations, safe guards, and access to technology and systems greatly limits a lot of the possibilities of independent practice. Leaving many to choose between short term contracts negotiated through 3rd parties that take commission, or working for large organizations that no longer offer job safety, security, or healthy work environments.
However, I feel that security, safe guards, regulatory compliance, as well as adequate storage and transmission of health data can be achieved through blockchain technology that could potentially enable licensed individuals to contract with either people in need of services, other professionals (nurse to provider etc) or small or large businesses needing workers and be able to do it with compliance and safety at the center of everything. This could help put control of services more in the control of those seeking care (ie access to nursing care in a remote rural setting for a person with a chronic condition outside of going through the wait times and lack of options of the one provider in their area… this would be especially useful for rural mental health care to open options of provider choices that doesn’t involve receiving services from someone you know in your community.) In short, nurses and providers want more autonomy and control over their work situations and the pandemic has highlighted flaws with in our current system and more fully protect their professional license but we are in need of better ways to independently practice and contract as well as we have an accessibility of care problem for consumers. Healthcare is only as good as you have access to it, right now a lot of Americans have limited access and options. There is also the appeal of receiving care in a more personalize or at home manner that doesn’t involve travel to another place to receive care. I feel the same technology that could put individuals back into control of their finances can be expanded to put people back into control of their health care and providers/ professionals back into control of their practices. It would be nice to see people and developers open to exploring this possibility, as unfortunately, I am more skilled at caring for people than developing technology. I think the future of healthcare looks different than anything we have seen yet as what we have now may not remain sustainable and I would love to see it grow into something new and great than crumble.
Thanks for talking the time to read!
B