Designing and Adapting Services to Create Value Outside a Hospital Using Blockchain Architecture

Abstract

As healthcare systems develop innovative services to create value for patients outside the hospital or clinical care facility, they face a major challenge. They need a communication architecture to support the sharing of information among the healthcare providers, patients, and external partners to fulfill the value created. The current electronic medical record systems of hospitals do not extend to many of these external partners unless they are part of the provider network. This paper proposes the use of blockchain architecture to address this challenge. By modeling service innovations used to create value as a set of service exchanges among providers, patients, and partners, the providers decide when blockchain architecture may complement their own extended EMR system in fulfilling the value they create to address patient needs. The authors use gamification to improve patient adherence to treatment plans designed to fulfill the value created and adapt the value created to reflect the changing patient ecosystem. The paper concludes with discussion and directions for future research.