Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence in Telemedicine and Remote Patient Monitoring

Abstract

Healthcare industry is constantly evolving because of rapid technological breakthroughs and changing patient needs. Use of innovations in healthcare using modern technologies is revolutionizing the delivery of health care, enhancing patient outcomes, and boosting operational effectiveness, data security, and privacy. Telemedicine and remote patient monitoring have become prominent, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Issues with traditional telemedicine and remote patient monitoring, which rely majorly on technology such as privacy and security concerns, interoperability issues, decision making based on large amounts of health data generated can be resolved using technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence wherein blockchain ensures decentralization, immutability of data facilitating easy data sharing, and consent administration and artificial intelligence enables clinical decision support decision and personalized healthcare with a focus on preventive instead of reactive health care ( Gupta, S., et al., 2023 ). This chapter reviews the use of blockchain and AI in some significant telemedicine and remote patient monitoring projects and how they can improve the efficiency and functionality of current healthcare. A patient-centric framework has been proposed using components of blockchain and artificial intelligence such as decentralization, distributed ledger technology, consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, immutability, machine learning, deep learning in telemedicine, and remote patient monitoring. Major challenges such as legal and regulatory considerations, ethical concerns, integration and implementation, adoption, and acceptance have been identified and addressed. Overall, the use of blockchain and artificial intelligence in telemedicine and remote patient monitoring has a huge potential to transform the way healthcare is provided.