Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Dec 27, 2021)
Date Submitted: Oct 25, 2021
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Blockchain Technology and Sleep Medicine
ABSTRACT
Blockchain is an innovative decentralized ledger-based technology that was invented in 2008. Initial utilization was developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin, but the utility of the technology extends well beyond just that of currency. Much of the value of blockchain exists in the revolutionary ability to transmit and validate data without a third party. Blockchain has significant room for utility in healthcare as a whole, with most of its potential still being very much untapped with the technology still in its incipience. Sleep medicine is an area of medicine that is particularly primed for implementation of blockchain, being a field immensely reliant on data transmission from technology in the form of sleep diagnostics, sleep-related consumer technologies, and therapeutic devices for clinical care to optimally function. Data exchange and entry points for logistics of diagnosis and management of sleep disorders is often fairly profuse and involving multiple parties, making blockchain technology particularly advantageous. Blockchain, like any technology, is not without its limitations, and more research and development is needed before it can be integrated to its potential. However, in blockchain exists the prospect of revolutionizing the way patients’ data interacts with the healthcare system as a whole as well as adjunctive systems which aid in conducting clinical care.
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