Background: Blockchain technology has the potential to enable more secure, transparent, and equitable data management. In the health care domain, it has been applied most frequently to electronic health records. In addition to securely managing data, blockchain has significant advantages in distributing data access, control, and ownership to end users. Due to this attribute, among others, the use of blockchain to power personal health records (PHRs) is especially appealing.
Objective: This review aims to examine the current landscape, design choices, limitations, and future directions of blockchain-based PHRs.
Methods: Adopting the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines, a cross-disciplinary systematic review was performed in July 2020 on all eligible articles, including gray literature, from the following 8 databases: ACM, IEEE Xplore, MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Scopus, SpringerLink, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Three reviewers independently performed a full-text review and data abstraction using a standardized data collection form.
Results: A total of 58 articles met the inclusion criteria. In the review, we found that the blockchain PHR space has matured over the past 5 years, from purely conceptual ideas initially to an increasing trend of publications describing prototypes and even implementations. Although the eventual application of blockchain in PHRs is intended for the health care industry, the majority of the articles were found in engineering or computer science publications. Among the blockchain PHRs described, permissioned blockchains and off-chain storage were the most common design choices. Although 18 articles described a tethered blockchain PHR, all of them were at the conceptual stage.
Conclusions: This review revealed that although research interest in blockchain PHRs is increasing and that the space is maturing, this technology is still largely in the conceptual stage. Being the first systematic review on blockchain PHRs, this review should serve as a basis for future reviews to track the development of the space.
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8080150 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25094 | DOI Listing |
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Article Synopsis
- Digital technologies are rapidly improving the implementation of electronic health records (EHRs) and personal health records (PHRs), leading to challenges in data management, security, and usability due to increasing data complexity.
- A systematic review of literature covering advancements in these areas from 2010 to 2020 identified 23 relevant studies, primarily focusing on information extraction and natural language processing, as well as blockchain technology's role in healthcare.
- Overall, advancements in these technologies can enhance the efficiency of EHR and PHR systems, facilitating better data extraction from unstructured information and preparing for future interoperability needs.
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