electronics Article A Novel Medical Blockchain Model for Drug Supply Chain Integrity Management in a Smart Hospital Faisal Jamil 1 , Lei Hang 1 , KyuHyung Kim 2 and DoHyeun Kim 1,* 1 Department of Computer Engineering, Jeju National University, Jejusi 63243, Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, Korea;
[email protected] (F.J.);
[email protected] (L.H.) 2 Daegu-Gyeongbuk Research Center, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daegu-si 42994, Korea;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 4 April 2019; Accepted: 26 April 2019; Published: 7 May 2019 Abstract: At present, in pharmacology one of the most serious problems is counterfeit drugs. The Health Research Funding organization reported that in developing countries, nearly 10–30% of the drugs are fake. Counterfeiting is not the main issue itself, but, rather, the fact that, as compared to traditional drugs, these counterfeit drugs produce different side effects to human health. According to WHO, around 30% of the total medicine sold in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is counterfeit. This is the major worldwide problem, and the situation is worse in developing countries, where one out of every 10 medicines are either fake or do not follow drug regulations. The rise of Internet pharmacies has made it more difficult to standardize drug safety. It is difficult to detect counterfeits because these drugs pass through different complex distributed networks, thus forming opportunities for counterfeits to enter the authentic supply chain. The safety of the pharmaceutical supply chain has become a major concern for public health, which is a collective process.