Open Access

ARTICLE

HealthyBlockchain for Global Patients

by Shada A. Alsalamah^1,2,3,*, Hessah A. Alsalamah^1,4, Thamer Nouh⁵, Sara A. Alsalamah⁶

1 College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
2 Digital Health and Innovation, Science Division, World Health Organization, Geneva, CH-1211, Switzerland
3 MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, 02139, MA, USA
4 College of Engineering and Architecture, Al Yamamah University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
5 Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Unit, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, 11451, Saudi Arabia
6 College of Computer and Information Sciences, Al Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, 13318, Saudi Arabia

* Corresponding Author: Shada A. Alsalamah. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and IoT based intelligent systems using high performance computing for Medical applications.)

Computers, Materials & Continua 2021, 68(2), 2431-2449. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2021.016618

Received 06 January 2021; Accepted 17 February 2021; Issue published 13 April 2021

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 time-stamp 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.

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Keywords

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