Cargando…

The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine

Objective. Telehealth and telemedicine systems aim to deliver remote healthcare services to mitigate the spread of COVID-9. Also, they can help to manage scarce healthcare resources to control the massive burden of COVID-19 patients in hospitals. However, a large portion of today's telehealth a...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ahmad, Raja Wasim, Salah, Khaled, Jayaraman, Raja, Yaqoob, Ibrar, Ellahham, Samer, Omar, Mohammed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier B.V. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7842132/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33540131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2021.104399
_version_ 1783643949885292544
author Ahmad, Raja Wasim
Salah, Khaled
Jayaraman, Raja
Yaqoob, Ibrar
Ellahham, Samer
Omar, Mohammed
author_facet Ahmad, Raja Wasim
Salah, Khaled
Jayaraman, Raja
Yaqoob, Ibrar
Ellahham, Samer
Omar, Mohammed
author_sort Ahmad, Raja Wasim
collection PubMed
description Objective. Telehealth and telemedicine systems aim to deliver remote healthcare services to mitigate the spread of COVID-9. Also, they can help to manage scarce healthcare resources to control the massive burden of COVID-19 patients in hospitals. However, a large portion of today's telehealth and telemedicine systems are centralized and fall short of providing necessary information security and privacy, operational transparency, health records immutability, and traceability to detect frauds related to patients’ insurance claims and physician credentials. Methods. The current study has explored the potential opportunities and adaptability challenges for blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine sector. It has explored the key role that blockchain technology can play to provide necessary information security and privacy, operational transparency, health records immutability, and traceability to detect frauds related to patients’ insurance claims and physician credentials. Results. Blockchain technology can improve telehealth and telemedicine services by offering remote healthcare services in a manner that is decentralized, tamper-proof, transparent, traceable, reliable, trustful, and secure. It enables health professionals to accurately identify frauds related to physician educational credentials and medical testing kits commonly used for home-based diagnosis. Conclusions. Wide deployment of blockchain in telehealth and telemedicine technology is still in its infancy. Several challenges and research problems need to be resolved to enable the widespread adoption of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine systems.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7842132
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Elsevier B.V.
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-78421322021-01-29 The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine Ahmad, Raja Wasim Salah, Khaled Jayaraman, Raja Yaqoob, Ibrar Ellahham, Samer Omar, Mohammed Int J Med Inform Review Article Objective. Telehealth and telemedicine systems aim to deliver remote healthcare services to mitigate the spread of COVID-9. Also, they can help to manage scarce healthcare resources to control the massive burden of COVID-19 patients in hospitals. However, a large portion of today's telehealth and telemedicine systems are centralized and fall short of providing necessary information security and privacy, operational transparency, health records immutability, and traceability to detect frauds related to patients’ insurance claims and physician credentials. Methods. The current study has explored the potential opportunities and adaptability challenges for blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine sector. It has explored the key role that blockchain technology can play to provide necessary information security and privacy, operational transparency, health records immutability, and traceability to detect frauds related to patients’ insurance claims and physician credentials. Results. Blockchain technology can improve telehealth and telemedicine services by offering remote healthcare services in a manner that is decentralized, tamper-proof, transparent, traceable, reliable, trustful, and secure. It enables health professionals to accurately identify frauds related to physician educational credentials and medical testing kits commonly used for home-based diagnosis. Conclusions. Wide deployment of blockchain in telehealth and telemedicine technology is still in its infancy. Several challenges and research problems need to be resolved to enable the widespread adoption of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine systems. Elsevier B.V. 2021-04 2021-01-28 /pmc/articles/PMC7842132/ /pubmed/33540131 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2021.104399 Text en © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Review Article
Ahmad, Raja Wasim
Salah, Khaled
Jayaraman, Raja
Yaqoob, Ibrar
Ellahham, Samer
Omar, Mohammed
The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title_full The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title_fullStr The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title_full_unstemmed The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title_short The role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
title_sort role of blockchain technology in telehealth and telemedicine
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7842132/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33540131
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2021.104399
work_keys_str_mv AT ahmadrajawasim theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT salahkhaled theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT jayaramanraja theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT yaqoobibrar theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT ellahhamsamer theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT omarmohammed theroleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT ahmadrajawasim roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT salahkhaled roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT jayaramanraja roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT yaqoobibrar roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT ellahhamsamer roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine
AT omarmohammed roleofblockchaintechnologyintelehealthandtelemedicine