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Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility
BACKGROUND: There are many perspectives on the advantages of introducing blockchain in the medical field, but there are no published feasibility studies regarding the storage, propagation, and management of personal health records (PHRs) using blockchain technology. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this st...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
JMIR Publications
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384539/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30735142 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/12533 |
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author | Park, Yu Rang Lee, Eunsol Na, Wonjun Park, Sungjun Lee, Yura Lee, Jae-Ho |
author_facet | Park, Yu Rang Lee, Eunsol Na, Wonjun Park, Sungjun Lee, Yura Lee, Jae-Ho |
author_sort | Park, Yu Rang |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: There are many perspectives on the advantages of introducing blockchain in the medical field, but there are no published feasibility studies regarding the storage, propagation, and management of personal health records (PHRs) using blockchain technology. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of blockchains in the medical field in relation to transactions with and propagation of PHRs in a private blockchain. METHODS: We constructed a private blockchain network using Ethereum version 1.8.4 and conducted verification using the de-identified PHRs of 300 patients. The private blockchain network consisted of one hospital node and 300 patient nodes. In order to verify the effectiveness of blockchain-based PHR management, PHRs at a time were loaded in a transaction between the hospital and patient nodes and propagated to the whole network. We obtained and analyzed the time and gas required for data transaction and propagation on the blockchain network. For reproducibility, these processes were repeated 100 times. RESULTS: Of 300 patient records, 74 (24.7%) were not loaded in the private blockchain due to the data block size of the transaction block. The remaining 226 individual health records were classified into groups A (80 patients with outpatient visit data less than 1 year old), B (84 patients with outpatient data from between 1 and 3 years before data collection), and C (62 patients with outpatient data 3 to 5 years old). With respect to mean transaction time in the blockchain, C (128.7 seconds) had the shortest time, followed by A (132.2 seconds) and then B (159.0 seconds). The mean propagation times for groups A, B, and C were 1494.2 seconds, 2138.9 seconds, and 4111.4 seconds, respectively; mean file sizes were 5.6 KB, 18.6 KB, and 45.38 KB, respectively. The mean gas consumption values were 1,900,767; 4,224,341; and 4,112,784 for groups A, B, and C, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that it is possible to exchange PHR data in a private blockchain network. However, to develop a blockchain-based PHR platform that can be used in practice, many improvements are required, including reductions in data size, improved personal information protection, and reduced operating costs. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6384539 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | JMIR Publications |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-63845392019-03-15 Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility Park, Yu Rang Lee, Eunsol Na, Wonjun Park, Sungjun Lee, Yura Lee, Jae-Ho J Med Internet Res Original Paper BACKGROUND: There are many perspectives on the advantages of introducing blockchain in the medical field, but there are no published feasibility studies regarding the storage, propagation, and management of personal health records (PHRs) using blockchain technology. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of blockchains in the medical field in relation to transactions with and propagation of PHRs in a private blockchain. METHODS: We constructed a private blockchain network using Ethereum version 1.8.4 and conducted verification using the de-identified PHRs of 300 patients. The private blockchain network consisted of one hospital node and 300 patient nodes. In order to verify the effectiveness of blockchain-based PHR management, PHRs at a time were loaded in a transaction between the hospital and patient nodes and propagated to the whole network. We obtained and analyzed the time and gas required for data transaction and propagation on the blockchain network. For reproducibility, these processes were repeated 100 times. RESULTS: Of 300 patient records, 74 (24.7%) were not loaded in the private blockchain due to the data block size of the transaction block. The remaining 226 individual health records were classified into groups A (80 patients with outpatient visit data less than 1 year old), B (84 patients with outpatient data from between 1 and 3 years before data collection), and C (62 patients with outpatient data 3 to 5 years old). With respect to mean transaction time in the blockchain, C (128.7 seconds) had the shortest time, followed by A (132.2 seconds) and then B (159.0 seconds). The mean propagation times for groups A, B, and C were 1494.2 seconds, 2138.9 seconds, and 4111.4 seconds, respectively; mean file sizes were 5.6 KB, 18.6 KB, and 45.38 KB, respectively. The mean gas consumption values were 1,900,767; 4,224,341; and 4,112,784 for groups A, B, and C, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This study confirms that it is possible to exchange PHR data in a private blockchain network. However, to develop a blockchain-based PHR platform that can be used in practice, many improvements are required, including reductions in data size, improved personal information protection, and reduced operating costs. JMIR Publications 2019-02-08 /pmc/articles/PMC6384539/ /pubmed/30735142 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/12533 Text en ©Yu Rang Park, Eunsol Lee, Wonjun Na, Sungjun Park, Yura Lee, Jae-Ho Lee. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 08.02.2019. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. |
spellingShingle | Original Paper Park, Yu Rang Lee, Eunsol Na, Wonjun Park, Sungjun Lee, Yura Lee, Jae-Ho Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title | Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title_full | Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title_fullStr | Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title_full_unstemmed | Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title_short | Is Blockchain Technology Suitable for Managing Personal Health Records? Mixed-Methods Study to Test Feasibility |
title_sort | is blockchain technology suitable for managing personal health records? mixed-methods study to test feasibility |
topic | Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6384539/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30735142 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/12533 |
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