Alpha 2.0
Login Register
» Articles » PMID: 29016974

Blockchain Distributed Ledger Technologies for Biomedical and Health Care Applications

Overview
Journal J Am Med Inform Assoc
Publisher Oxford University Press
Specialty Medical Informatics
Date 2017 Oct 11
PMID 29016974
Citations 154
Authors
Tsung-Ting Kuo
Hyeon-Eui Kim
Lucila Ohno-Machado
Affiliations
Soon will be listed here.
Abstract

Objectives: To introduce blockchain technologies, including their benefits, pitfalls, and the latest applications, to the biomedical and health care domains.

Target Audience: Biomedical and health care informatics researchers who would like to learn about blockchain technologies and their applications in the biomedical/health care domains.

Scope: The covered topics include: (1) introduction to the famous Bitcoin crypto-currency and the underlying blockchain technology; (2) features of blockchain; (3) review of alternative blockchain technologies; (4) emerging nonfinancial distributed ledger technologies and applications; (5) benefits of blockchain for biomedical/health care applications when compared to traditional distributed databases; (6) overview of the latest biomedical/health care applications of blockchain technologies; and (7) discussion of the potential challenges and proposed solutions of adopting blockchain technologies in biomedical/health care domains.

Citing Articles

The integration of AI in nursing: addressing current applications, challenges, and future directions.

Wei Q, Pan S, Liu X, Hong M, Nong C, Zhang W Front Med (Lausanne). 2025; 12:1545420.

PMID: 40007584 PMC: 11850350. DOI: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1545420.

Ethics of Blockchain by Design: Guiding a Responsible Future for Healthcare Innovation.

Ramachandran M Blockchain Healthc Today. 2025; 7.

PMID: 39995487 PMC: 11848840. DOI: 10.30953/bhty.v7.362.

Distributed cross-learning for equitable federated models - privacy-preserving prediction on data from five California hospitals.

Kuo T, Gabriel R, Koola J, Schooley R, Ohno-Machado L Nat Commun. 2025; 16(1):1371.

PMID: 39910076 PMC: 11799213. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56510-9.

The role of artificial intelligence in pandemic responses: from epidemiological modeling to vaccine development.

Gawande M, Zade N, Kumar P, Gundewar S, Weerarathna I, Verma P Mol Biomed. 2025; 6(1):1.

PMID: 39747786 PMC: 11695538. DOI: 10.1186/s43556-024-00238-3.

Designing a blockchain technology platform for enhancing the pre-exposure prophylaxis care continuum.

Khurshid A, Harrell D, Li D, Hallmark C, Hanson L, Viswanathan N JAMIA Open. 2024; 7(4):ooae140.

PMID: 39703882 PMC: 11658693. DOI: 10.1093/jamiaopen/ooae140.

References
1.
Ohno-Machado L . To share or not to share: that is not the question. Sci Transl Med. 2012; 4(165):165cm15. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3004454. View
2.
Yue X, Wang H, Jin D, Li M, Jiang W . Healthcare Data Gateways: Found Healthcare Intelligence on Blockchain with Novel Privacy Risk Control. J Med Syst. 2016; 40(10):218. DOI: 10.1007/s10916-016-0574-6. View
3.
McKernan K . The chloroplast genome hidden in plain sight, open access publishing and anti-fragile distributed data sources. Mitochondrial DNA A DNA Mapp Seq Anal. 2015; 27(6):4518-4519. DOI: 10.3109/19401736.2015.1101541. View
4.
Topol E . Money back guarantees for non-reproducible results?. BMJ. 2016; 353:i2770. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.i2770. View
5.
Ohno-Machado L, Bafna V, Boxwala A, Chapman B, Chapman W, Chaudhuri K . iDASH: integrating data for analysis, anonymization, and sharing. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2011; 19(2):196-201. PMC: 3277627. DOI: 10.1136/amiajnl-2011-000538. View