Healthy blockchain for global patients

Abstract

An emerging healthcare delivery model is enabling a new era of clinical care based on well-informed decision-making processes. Current healthcare information systems (HISs) fall short of adopting this model due to a conflict between information security needed to implement the new model and those already enforced locally to support traditional care models. Meanwhile, in recent times, the healthcare sector has shown a substantial interest in the potential of using blockchain technology for providing quality care to patients. No blockchain solution proposed so far has fully addressed emerging cross-organization information-sharing needs in healthcare. In this paper, we aim to study the use of blockchain in equipping struggling HISs to cope with the demands of the new healthcare delivery model, by proposing HealthyBlockchain as a granular patient-centered ledger that digitally tracks a patient's medical transactions all along the treatment pathway to support the care teams. The patient-centered ledger is a neutral tamper-proof trail timestamp block sequence that governs distributed patient information across the decentralized discrete HISs. HealthyBlockchain connects patients, clinicians, and healthcare providers to facilitate a transparent, trustworthy, and secure supporting platform.