Blockchain enabled patient-centred care for inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic relapsing and remitting illness. The presentation, diagnosis and management IBD are complex, and involve multi-disciplinary care with complex information requirements. The lack of an accurate and comprehensive patient record is often a stumbling block for optimal patient care. Blockchain technology therefore appears to be the perfect solution to improve IBD patient care. Blockchain technology can provide comprehensive and secure data transmission. Many current projects using blockchain for IBD care focus on information delivery. Recently, clinical research has shown that patients have different perceptions of what constitutes high-quality care, compared to healthcare professionals. Patient-centred care in IBD has increasingly taken central stage. Concurrently, blockchain in healthcare has shifted focus to argue for allowing the patient to be in the driver’s seat for information access, facilitated by blockchain-enabled patientdriven interoperability and patient-driven care. This paper dissects the risks and benefits of these two approaches in using blockchain in IBD patient care. This paper then explores the socio-technical and clinical considerations in using blockchain in IBD patient care. Finally, this paper presents four key principles in using blockchain to improve IBD paper care, using collaborative participatory design involving patients, healthcare professionals, and health systems.