Background: The current healthcare ecosystem in the United States is plagued by inefficiencies in transitions of patient care between healthcare providers due to a lack of interoperability of electronic medical record (EMR)
systems. Providers and patients experience significant frustration due to the negative effects of increased costs, unnecessary administrative burden, and duplication of services that occur because of data fragmentation. Blockchain technology provides a solution to mitigate and eliminate these gaps by allowing for healthcare information exchange that is distributed, auditable, immutable, and respectful of patient autonomy. Authors identified key tasks required for a transition of care to design
and develop a blockchain application that served as a patient-centric identity management system to address the issues of data fragmentation ultimately allowing for the delivery of high value care.
Positive results were reported in seven clinical scenarios tested across twenty patient use cases. In addition to completing all key tasks designated, all eligible participants were able to enroll with and subsequently revoke data access from the simulated research site.
