A Framework of the Critical Factors for Healthcare Providers in Data-Sharing Using Blockchain

The healthcare sector is suffering from inefficiencies in handling its data. Many patients and healthcare organisations are frustrated by the numerous hurdles to obtaining current, real-time patient information. Patients are also frustrated at trying to schedule appointments at health organisations with outdated contact information. The healthcare sector’s attention has been drawn to blockchain technology as a part of the solution, especially since this technology was successfully applied in the financial sector to improve the security of transactions. The lack of data-sharing in the healthcare sector is considered a significant issue worldwide. This research focuses on this gap by investigating the benefits of using blockchain at the Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia, providing a detailed analysis of the healthcare sector, and evaluating how blockchain technology improves data-sharing security. This research proposes a framework that identifies the factors supporting data-sharing using blockchain among healthcare organisations. It has three categories: healthcare systems factors; security factors; and blockchain factors. A triangulation technique achieved reliable results in three steps: a literature review; an expert review; and a questionnaire. This gave a comprehensive picture of the research topic, validating and confirming the results. To construct the framework, factors were comprehensively extracted from the literature then analysed, cleared of duplicates, and categorised. As a result, the final framework is confirmed as being based on the literature and expert review, and it is supported by the practitioners’ survey.