Blockchain Technology for Healthcare: Facilitating the Transition to Patient-Driven Interoperability
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1-s2.0-S200103701830028X-main.pdf
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687.32 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Gordon, William J.
Catalini, Christian
Date Issued
June 2018
Journal
Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Gordon, William J. and Christian Catalini. “Blockchain Technology for Healthcare: Facilitating the Transition to Patient-Driven Interoperability.” Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal 16 (2018): 224–230 © 2018 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Interoperability in healthcare has traditionally been focused around data exchange between business entities, for example, different hospital systems. However, there has been a recent push towards patient-driven interoperability, in which health data exchange is patient-mediated and patient-driven. Patient-centered interoperability, however, brings with it new challenges and requirements around security and privacy, technology, incentives, and governance that must be addressed for this type of data sharing to succeed at scale. In this paper, we look at how blockchain technology might facilitate this transition through five mechanisms: (1) digital access rules, (2) data aggregation, (3) data liquidity, (4) patient identity, and (5) data immutability. We then look at barriers to blockchain-enabled patient-driven interoperability, specifically clinical data transaction volume, privacy and security, patient engagement, and incentives. We conclude by noting that while patient-driving interoperability is an exciting trend in healthcare, given these challenges, it remains to be seen whether blockchain can facilitate the transition from institution-centric to patient-centric data sharing. Keywords: Clinical data; Interoperability; Data exchange; Blockchain; Application programming interface
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/J.CSBJ.2018.06.003
