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Building a Patient-Centered Blockchain Ecosystem for Caregivers: Diabetes Type II Case Study

Authors:
Shada Alsalamah
Ghada Alsuwailem
Fatima Alrajeh
Samar Aharbi
Salmah AlQahtani
Razan AlArifi
Shaden AlShargi
Shaikha AlOthman

Keywords: Blockchain Technology; Diabetes Type II; mHealth; Patient-Centered care, Home caregiving

Abstract:
Diabetes is one of the fastest-growing health problems in the world, and is now reaching epidemic proportions in some countries. With the globally increasing numbers of diabetic patients and their need for professional care, it is difficult and time-consuming to share patient-care information among caregivers in a traditional way, which adds financial and psychological burden on home caregivers. Recent developments in advanced technologies and mobile health (mHealth) applications fail to equip them with the right ecosystem for patient-centered information sharing to allow for informed care decisions. Therefore, motivated by the need for home caregivers’ empowerment to cope with the pressure, this paper studies the requirements for building an effective communication channel among caregivers and between them and their patients, and presents the potential benefits of mHealth applications and blockchain technology in achieving such requirements using a case study in Diabetes Type II patients in Saudi Arabia. Using interviews and questionnaires, this paper shows that there is the need for an ecosystem that supports diverse caregiving groups with multiple languages, distributes tasks between more than one caregiver to alleviate the burden on one caregiver, provides a treatment plan provision by a specialized care team to be viewed and followed by caregivers and patients, and alerts everyone in case of an emergency. Such requirements can be incorporated into an mHealth solution that builds a transparent blockchain-based patient-centered caregiving ecosystem.

Pages: 18 to 25

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2019

Publication date: November 24, 2019

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2519-8491

ISBN: 978-1-61208-759-7

Location: Valencia, Spain

Dates: from November 24, 2019 to November 28, 2019