Healthcare stakeholders are increasingly questioning whether blockchain holds the answer to secure sharing of patient medical records. However, with research just beginning, there's a lot left to uncover.
In August 2016, HHS selected 15 winners for its "Use of Blockchain in Health IT and Health-Related Research" challenge. All 15 of the papers discuss how blockchain can be used to protect and exchange electronic health information.
Here are the papers.
1. "Blockchain and Health IT: Algorithms, Privacy, and Data," by Project PharmOrchard of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Experimental Learning lab in Cambridge
2. "Blockchain: Securing a New Health Interoperability Experience," by Accenture
3. "Blockchain Technologies: A Whitepaper Discussing How Claims Process can be Improved," by Kyle Culver, an unaffiliated author
4. "Blockchain: Opportunities for Health Care," by Deloitte
5. "A Case Study for Blockchain in Healthcare: 'MedRec' Prototype for Electronic Health Records and Medical Research Data," by MIT Media Lab in Cambridge and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston
6. "The Use of a Blockchain to Foster the Development of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures," by The National Quality Forum
7. "Powering the Physician Patient Relationship with 'HIE of One' Blockchain Health IT," by Adrian Gropper, MD, an unaffiliated author
8. "Blockchain: The Chain of Trust and its Potential to Transform Healthcare — Our Point of View," by IBM Global Business Service Public Sector
9. "Moving Toward a Blockchain-based Method for the Secure Storage of Patient Records," by Drew Ivan, an unaffiliated author
10. "ModelChain: Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Health Care Predictive Modeling Framework on Private Blockchain Networks," by UC San Diego's Health System Department of Biomedical Informatics in La Jolla and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System's Division of Health Services Research & Development
11. "Blockchain for Health Data and Its Potential Use in Health IT and Health Care Related Research," by Laure A. Linn and Martha B. Koo, MD, two unaffiliated authors
12. "A Blockchain-Based Approach to Health Information Exchange Networks," by Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.
13. "Adoption of Blockchain to enable the Scalability and Adoption of Accountable Care," by Ramkrishna Prakash, an unaffiliated author
14. "A Blockchain Profile for Medicaid Applicants and Recipients," by Blockchain Futures Lab — Institute for the Future
15. "Blockchain & Alternate Payment Models," by King Yip, an unaffiliated author
Click here to view the full papers.