Benefits of Blockchain Initiatives for Value-Based Care: Proposed Framework (Preprint)

Abstract

BACKGROUND The potential of blockchain technology to achieve strategic goals, such as value-based care, is increasingly being recognized by both researchers and practitioners. However, current research and practices lack comprehensive approaches for evaluating the benefits of blockchain applications. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to develop a framework for holistically assessing the performance of blockchain initiatives in providing value-based care by extending the existing balanced scorecard (BSC) evaluation framework. METHODS Based on a review of the literature on value-based health care, blockchain technology, and methods for evaluating initiatives in disruptive technologies, we propose an extended BSC method for holistically evaluating blockchain applications in the provision of value-based health care. The proposed method extends the BSC framework, which has been extensively used to measure both financial and nonfinancial performance of organizations. The usefulness of our proposed framework is further demonstrated via a case study. RESULTS We describe the extended BSC framework, which includes five perspectives (both financial and nonfinancial) from which to assess the appropriateness and performance of blockchain initiatives in the health care domain. CONCLUSIONS The proposed framework moves us toward a holistic evaluation of both the financial and nonfinancial benefits of blockchain initiatives in the context of value-based care and its provision.