The impact of eHealth and blockchain technology implementation in healthcare

Abstract

eHealth is viewed as one of the most important revolutions in healthcare and a specific goal of the European Union to improve citizen’s accessibility to healthcare across borders. In this field, Estonia stands out as one of the most digitally advanced countries, having had a national eHealth system protected by blockchain since 2008. This research aimed to identify the benefits and challenges of implementing eHealth for society, in general, and for healthcare professionals, in particular; specifically in the country that already has over a decade of experience in adopting eHealth; and analyze the contribution of blockchain technology in the implementation of eHealth. Therefore, in a first phase, a systematic review of the literature was carried out, using the Scopus database, in April 2023, of all the publications, written in English, with the terms “Estoni*” and “eHealth*” or “e-Health*” or “Blockchain”. The search engine presented 74 publications, of which 19 met the selected criteria. The improvement in access and quality of the service provided, cooperation and data sharing, efficiency, knowledge and control of one’s own data were among the most mentioned benefits. Disparities in access, confidentiality and lack of trust, financing, cognitive load and data quality were the challenges encountered in implementing digital technologies in healthcare. In a second phase, a qualitative research was carried out through a semi-structured interview with eleven participants, selected from among healthcare professionals, such as doctors, nurses and managers of healthcare institutions, on their personal perspective of eHealth. The participants also highlighted easy access to medical data and easier communication with patients and other healthcare providers as major benefits of eHealth. However, data overload, the need to acquire digital skills and disparities in the access to healthcare by specific groups of the population are amongst the biggest challenges in implementing eHealth.

Date of Award	13 Dec 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	António Mendes Ferreira (Supervisor) & Pedro Miguel Lopes Mota Veiga (Co-Supervisor)