Development and Pilot-Test of Blockchain-Based MyHealthData Platform

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this article, the authors proposed a blockchain-based health platform to manage health data. The development of the platform is clearly shown in Figure 1. The authors also shows user satisfaction survey in the result section. This platform looks complete and it is already online for users to use, but it still lacks some information to support the persuasiveness of the platform. If the authors can provide more complete explanations, the article will become better. 

Some issues need to be modified to make the article better and complete, the issues are listed as follows:

1. Firstly, the authors stated that data is stored and read on MediBloc's Blockchain through a relay server. There are fewer descriptions or citations about the MediBloc in this paper. If possible, please describe the Blockchain in more detail, such as architecture, number of nodes, consensus mechanism, authentication, privacy, and execution speed.
2. Extending the topic of blockchain, is any smart contract enabled in this platform?
3. Please explain the survey more in detail, such as the scale of the score, the consistency reliability of the survey.
4. Minor issues: The number of pages in MDPI (22 pages) is not matched with the pdf files (11 pages)

 

Author Response

1.    Firstly, the authors stated that data is stored and read on MediBloc's Blockchain through a relay server. There are fewer descriptions or citations about the MediBloc in this paper. If possible, please describe the Blockchain in more detail, such as architecture, number of nodes, consensus mechanism, authentication, privacy, and execution speed.

Thanks for the comment. The blockchain part was added to the method and detailed contents were described.

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Blockchain
The Panacea public blockchain developed by Medibloc is based on the Cosmos SDK (Software Development Kit) blockchain framework and the Tendermint consen-sus engine [17]. As Tendermint implements the pBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Toler-ance) consensus algorithm and Cosmos SDK follows the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) model, the Panacea has the fast-finality that its average block time is about 2~6 seconds [18, 19]. The Panacea consists of 21 validator nodes on Seoul, Tokyo and Sin-gapore for high-availability and fault-tolerance. Each validator node bonded some amount of MED coins in order to acquire the reasonable voting power. Whenever a new block needs to be created, all validators validate the block and transactions that are included in the block. If the block is validated with more than 2/3 of the total voting power, the block is committed to the chain. If any validator wants to violate the chain, it must acquire more than 2/3 of the total voting power. But, that is extremely unlikely to happen in reality. Since the Panacea is a public blockchain, all transactions are transparently open, so that anyone can see the contents of transactions and validate them. Also, any token holders can delegate their MED coins to validators that they want. Thus, they can contribute to making the chain more secure without operating their own validator nodes. For that, the information and action history of all validators are also publicly open. The source code of the panacea blockchain used in this study is also open to the public [20]. For privacy protection, no information other than the hash value is recorded in the block chain. Since panacea does not support smart contracts, this is also not used.

 

2.    Extending the topic of blockchain, is any smart contract enabled in this platform?
Currently, the blockchain does not support smart contracts, so it was not used. The corresponding part is also described in the blockchain part.

Currently, the blockchain does not support smart contracts, so it was not used. The corresponding part is also described in the blockchain part in the Method section.

 

3. Please explain the survey more in detail, such as the scale of the score, the consistency reliability of the survey.

 

We would like to thank the reviewer for the comment, which have helped us substantially improve our manuscript. As requested, we calculated Cronbach’s alpha to measure of consistency and reliability of the survey. The reliability coefficients are 0.86 for perceived ease of use, 0.89 for perceived usefulness, and 0.88 for satisfaction respectively. We added the contents regarding reliability of the survey in the Method and Result section.

 

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We use coefficient alpha (Cronbach’s alpha) to measure internal consistency of the survey [23].

 

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The reliability coefficients are 0.86 and 0.89 for perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness respectively.

 

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The reliability coefficient is 0.88 for satisfaction.

 

4. Minor issues: The number of pages in MDPI (22 pages) is not matched with the pdf files (11 pages)

 

Thanks for the comment. We matched the number of pages.

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript introduces a blockchain-based data management platform. It is interesting and well written. But the contributions of this manuscript to new techniques can be further highlighted. 

This manuscript focuses on a platform. However, the technical problems solved and the new technical solutions provided are not clear.

In the section on methods, I think it is necessary to emphasize blockchain technology, especially the new contributions made in this manuscript. Besides, blockchain is a hot topic in recent years, more relevant works can be added and compared, for instance, Near-Online Tracking With Co-Occurrence Constraints in Blockchain-Based Edge Computing, Analysis of Using Blockchain to Protect the Privacy of Drone Big Data.

The platform is interesting and seems to be realized as an APP. Is the source code of the installation program or platform open? More details on how to obtain and use this platform may help publicize your work.

Author Response

In the section on methods, I think it is necessary to emphasize blockchain technology, especially the new contributions made in this manuscript. Besides, blockchain is a hot topic in recent years, more relevant works can be added and compared, for instance, Near-Online Tracking With Co-Occurrence Constraints in Blockchain-Based Edge Computing, Analysis of Using Blockchain to Protect the Privacy of Drone Big Data.

Thanks for the comment. The blockchain part was added to the method and detailed contents were described.

 

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Blockchain

The Panacea public blockchain developed by Medibloc is based on the Cosmos SDK (Software Development Kit) blockchain framework and the Tendermint consen-sus engine [17]. As Tendermint implements the pBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Toler-ance) consensus algorithm and Cosmos SDK follows the DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake) model, the Panacea has the fast-finality that its average block time is about 2~6 seconds [18, 19]. The Panacea consists of 21 validator nodes on Seoul, Tokyo and Sin-gapore for high-availability and fault-tolerance. Each validator node bonded some amount of MED coins in order to acquire the reasonable voting power. Whenever a new block needs to be created, all validators validate the block and transactions that are included in the block. If the block is validated with more than 2/3 of the total voting power, the block is committed to the chain. If any validator wants to violate the chain, it must acquire more than 2/3 of the total voting power. But, that is extremely unlikely to happen in reality. Since the Panacea is a public blockchain, all transactions are transparently open, so that anyone can see the contents of transactions and validate them. Also, any token holders can delegate their MED coins to validators that they want. Thus, they can contribute to making the chain more secure without operating their own validator nodes. For that, the information and action history of all validators are also publicly open. The source code of the panacea blockchain used in this study is also open to the public [20]. For privacy protection, no information other than the hash value is recorded in the block chain. Since panacea does not support smart contracts, this is also not used.

 

The platform is interesting and seems to be realized as an APP. Is the source code of the installation program or platform open? More details on how to obtain and use this platform may help publicize your work.

Thanks for the comment. The source code of the app is difficult to disclose. However, the blockchain source code is open to the public. Please refer to this link. https://github.com/medibloc/panacea-core Related description was also added to the method part.

 

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The source code of the panacea blockchain used in this study is also open to the public (https://github.com/medibloc/panacea-core) – (this website is referenced) For privacy protection, no information other than the hash value is recorded in the block chain. Since panacea does not support smart contracts, this is also not used.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

There are no other questions and this article is acceptable.