Blockchain in Healthcare: The Past, the Present and the Future

Dear Colleagues,

The MDPI journal Information invites submissions for a Special Issue entitled “Blockchain in Healthcare: The Past, the Present and the Future”. The application of blockchain technologies in the healthcare system has gained substantial interest in recent years. Researchers have identified numerous areas in which distributed ledger technology (including blockchain) can help to make the current medical system more effective and efficient. These include topics such as security, disintermediation, contact tracing, patients’ self-management of data, home monitoring, interoperability, and medical product supply chain. However, research also highlights numerous challenges that need to be overcome, including the complexity of introducing blockchain-based applications, incumbents’ resistance to change the current system, regulatory concerns, and privacy threats.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a broad forum for the discussion of timely topics surrounding blockchain application in healthcare. Due to the rapidly evolving technical and legal environments in which blockchain is being implemented and regulated, there is a need to update published research in this area. We invite conceptual papers, design science research, literature reviews, case studies, and empirical qualitative and quantitative studies that contribute new knowledge to the field.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

*) Practical use cases for blockchain in healthcare

*) Blockchain adoption strategies and barriers in healthcare

*) The impact of blockchain solutions on various stakeholders including governments

*) Privacy and security issues of electronic health records (EHRs) and patient-generated data (PGD)

*) Overview of current research clusters in blockchain and healthcare

*) Ethical issues of blockchain in healthcare

*) Token economics in healthcare

*) Technical and social issues related to blockchain governance

*) Examples of blockchain use for medical products and pharmaceutical supply chain

*) Blockchain education and workforce implications for healthcare professionals

Prof. Dr. Horst Treiblmaier
Dr. Anjum Khurshid
Dr. Rami Alkhudary
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• blockchain
• distributed ledger technology
• decentralized storage
• smart contracts
• Hyperledger
• healthcare
• digital transformation in healthcare
• adoption of blockchain in healthcare
• consensus mechanisms
• governance