Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This is an interesting article proposing the use of blockchain games within the medical industry to share information in a secure and private manner which could facilitate access to information, clinic trials and government approval.  Before jumping into the proposal, the article provides a good basic overview of how blockchain can be integrating into games generally.  Some of these aspects, such as transparency of game rules and individual ownership of items, while generally important to recreational gamers, are probably not that relevant in the context of games aimed at the elderly. Nevertheless, it provides a good overview.

 

The articles approach to establishing a proof of concept can be divided into the technical aspects of the proof of concept and the regulatory aspects (purpose/application).  As such, I’ll separate my comments into these 2 categories.

 

Proof of Concept Technical Specifications

 

The author’s idea is novel and establishing a proof of concept has merit. Conceptually, the structure of a blockchain game that collects and shares data is not overly complex, with much of the difficulty specific to the blockchain and programming language used. The authors should justify usage of Hyperledger Sawtooth. As an enterprise blockchain, it may be easier to utilize but that fact also undercuts it as a PoC compared with larger decentralized blockchains. There is nothing wrong with selecting an enterprise blockchain, but without stating a clear justification it leads the reader to wonder. I even skipped to the end to see if any conflict of interest was declared that might explain the selection.  Aside from some additional explanation, I don’t see any significant issues with the technical specifications aspect of the paper. Sufficient information is provided for almost anyone to follow the conceptual framework.

 

Regulatory approvals/usage

 

This is an area where the authors could strengthen the paper with a few extra paragraphs. As the authors note, approval procedures for medications and other traditional treatments are not appropriate for games. This is not only due to the time required for approvals but also the cost and comparably lower risk of games compared with medications that may have fatal or otherwise irreversible side effects. However, the authors do not make it clear whether any form of approval should be necessary or even desirable. Instead of ex anti approval, ex post administrative review is a possibility.   While addressing this issue may be important in establishing the scope of the significance of the proposal/research, using blockchain to collect data in a transparent but privacy preserving manner would be invaluable for research and could even be done on a voluntary basis. Addressing how the data should/could be used in different forms of regulatory environments would add value to the paper. Both medical science and blockchain technology are developing in this area. The authors should assume the paper will be read by law/policy makers and their staff.  While the focus is the proof of concept, framing how the data could/should be used substantially increases the value of the paper.

 

Thanks. I enjoyed the paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The papers proposes a Healthcare Game Blockchain (HGB) to support game developers, 13 healthcare providers, healthcare authorities, and patients. This paper explores the possibility of integrating 24 blockchain and healthcare games supporting clinical trials, and treatment monitoring.

 

The robust feature of this paper involves this proposal, with a good approach to healthcare.

 

However, the paper lacks a more detailed methodology. Section 3 give us a straightforward explanation with few details or clear contribution to the research and scientific aspect necessary for a paper. Figure 3 at first may be the most important explanation of the work and its lack of a clear usage of blockchain. Only giving us "Build smart contracts using thirdweb SDK" is not a scientific contribution.

The transaction logs at Figure 5 and its explanation lacks of a contribution since it is not clear if the system is focused at the user experience for a motivation of the game or it is a very simple use case without a clear contribution.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors focus on providing a potential application of blockchain technology in healthcare to provide a more secure source of truth. Overall, the method proposed is innovative and appropriate. Moreover, the manuscript is well presented. 

 

I have the following question and hope the authors can address them:

1. In Section 3.3. User Interface and User Experience Design. What is the time latency of introducing the blockchain platform? Will this time latency affect user experience?

 

2. Are there any plans to apply the proposed method to real data or real applications?

 

One last suggestion I have is, the font in Figures 1, 2, and 3 should keep consistent.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The study presents the idea of a Healthcare Game Blockchain (HGB) as a remedy to aid game developers, healthcare providers, healthcare authorities, and patients in the realm of healthcare games. It underscores the absence of a governing body for healthcare games and suggests HGB as a platform to store game prototypes, gather feedback data for analysis, enlist volunteers for clinical trials, and monitor patient reactions during healthcare game medication. The summary also underscores the capability of HGB to address security and privacy concerns through blockchain technology and investigates its incorporation into healthcare games for clinical trials and treatment supervision.

 

The research introduces the concept of a Healthcare Game Blockchain (HGB) as a solution to support game developers, healthcare providers, healthcare authorities, and patients in the context of healthcare games. It emphasizes the lack of a regulatory authority for healthcare games and proposes HGB as a platform to deposit game prototypes, collect feedback data for analysis, recruit volunteers for clinical trials, and track patient responses during healthcare game medication. The abstract also highlights the potential of HGB to resolve security and privacy issues through blockchain technology and explores its integration with healthcare games for clinical trials and treatment monitoring.

 

The article provides a comprehensive explanation of blockchain and its influence across various societal spheres. In the context of healthcare, the paper introduces a novel platform called Healthcare Game Blockchain, which seeks to assist patients by utilizing encrypted data for medical research. Through the application of blockchain technology, only aggregated data is accessible to third parties, ensuring the protection of individual statistics. Consequently, patient data remains secure, and pharmaceutical companies can utilize pooled statistics to derive valuable health insights. Additionally, game developers can leverage this collective data to design more engaging applications and foster enhanced health outcomes.

 

The article explains very well the concept of blockchain and the impact it has on different social domains. For the medical domain, the paper proposes an innovative platform called Healthcare Game Blockchain that aims to help patients by using encrypted data for medical research. By using blockchain technology, third parties can access only big group data and not individual statistics. This way, patient data is protected and pharma companies can use statistics pools to determine valuable health insights. Also, game developers can use group data to create more appealing apps and better health improvements.

 

While a few references are a little old (2014/2016), the majority of them are up-to-date and recent.

More related work about different types of blockchain and use cases, especially regarding security, should be added, for example:

- Wenhua, Zhang, et al. "Blockchain technology: security issues, healthcare applications, challenges and future trends." Electronics 12.3 (2023): 546.

- Aileni, Raluca Maria, et.al. "IoMT: A blockchain perspective." Decentralised Internet of Things: A Blockchain Perspective (2020): 199-215.

In summary, the paper effectively elucidates the concept of blockchain and its intersection with medical databases. It introduces an innovative concept called Healthcare Game Management, which seeks to establish a connection between patients, healthcare game developers, and third-party researchers through a blockchain-based application. The proposed idea appears to be exceptionally unique, and further development in this area would undoubtedly be intriguing.  

Minor issues 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf