First Advisor

Tugrul U. Daim

Term of Graduation

Winter 2021

Date of Publication

2-23-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Technology Management

Department

Engineering and Technology Management

Language

English

Subjects

Health services administration, Blockchains (Databases), Medical records -- Management, Information storage and retrieval systems -- Medical records

DOI

10.15760/etd.7527

Physical Description

1 online resource (xiii, 331 pages)

Abstract

Blockchain is an emerging technology that holds great promises in healthcare despite slow adoption and previous unsuccessful implementation projects. Blockchain adoption in healthcare has been slow, partly because healthcare is a heavily regulated and complex industry. Blockchain applications span various areas of healthcare such as patient data management, health information exchange, health supply chain management, financial and insurance claims, clinical trial, biomedical devices tracking, and pharmaceutical counterfeit. The main challenges with blockchain technology in healthcare are: scarcity of real applications, the high level of failing projects, and the need for various parties to function together. There is, however, a lack of research on how to assess the adoption and help healthcare organizations use blockchain for the management of the electronic healthcare records (EHR) systems in a comprehensive way incorporating multiple perspectives. The objective of this research is to develop a scoring model to evaluate healthcare organization's readiness to adopt blockchain for the management of the EHR systems.

In this research, a literature review and expert feedback were used to identify the most important factors influencing blockchain adoption. The focus is on the application of the blockchain technology adoption for the management of the EHR systems. The Hierarchical Decision Modeling (HDM) methodology was used to elicit multiple expert's judgment to identify the relative importance of those factors influencing blockchain adoption. In addition, experts' feedback was used to identify the possible statuses an organization might have regarding each factor and the dynamic aspects of these factors was analyzed. Finally, two case studies of the blockchain adoption, Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) hospital and a Medical City in Saudi Arabia, were conducted to demonstrate the practicality and value the research model brings to the research objective.

The outcomes of the research present an identification of blockchain adoption impacting factors and their resultant rankings. The research identifies 17 factors as the most important factors influencing blockchain adoption and a healthcare organization's readiness for adoption. The factors are grouped into five perspective: financial, social, technical, organizational, and regulations & legal. The case studies are used to demonstrate how the model could be used to identify areas of deficiencies and propose corrective actions in the healthcare organization's capabilities. The goal is to prevent any possible issues, before the project starts, in order to increase chances of a successful blockchain adoption.

Rights

© 2021 Saeed Mohammed Alzahrani

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/35133

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