Call for Papers

Special Theme Issue

Building the Medical Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges Across Scientific, Technological, Social, and Regulatory Disciplines

Overview

Similar to the gaming industry, the metaverse blurs lines between virtual and real life by creating an immersive and persistent three-dimensional virtual ecosystem, with avatars that represent our physical and spiritual essence. Although in its infancy state, we have begun to unlock how to use this newly created metaphysical space, its tools and accoutrements, to learn, interact, and interface with others - someday perhaps, through time. For now, this realm presents tangible novel educational, social, and economic possibilities. Yet, similar to the digital health field, the challenge in healthcare is to insure ethical and equitable opportunity for all.

As the demand for intelligent technology and practical applications increase, smart solutions to workforce, home health, life expectancy, and the overall practice of medicine morphs into virtual self care, we slowly come to the realization that humanity is undergoing a transformative elevation in consciousness, origin, and applied intelligence.

To this end, Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY) has created a special issue for multidisciplinary researchers, business, and creators to share and demonstrate how the metaverse can improve healthcare operations, outcomes, user and workforce satisfaction, increase economic opportunity and unveil new and projected financial implications for global health citizens.

How can data monetization, value based care, self care, and technology coexist to create a world economy that incentivizes positive health behaviors and outcomes such as adherence to therapeutic regimens and healthy lifestyle? How will the industry transform, resize, and retool, and what do legal, regulatory and economists predict?

Finally, how will distributed ledger technology provide secure interface between a multitude of layers ultimately used to create new revenue streams across global healthcare systems, providers, and patients, and governing bodies? How can we mitigate the risks and address ethical concerns of using blockchain-based monetization models in healthcare?

Multidisciplinary experts are invited to contribute research and findings including scholars, graduate students, post docs, researchers, consultants, business, health systems, not-for-profits, health professionals, and startups, to develop and submit research that instills informed discussions to explore how theories, pilot projects, and real world findings are developing a new dimension in health and metaphysical realities.

Topics

Multidisciplinary authors and futurists around the globe are invited to submit original research articles, reviews, and short technical reports (2,500 words), on the latest findings and state-of-the-art results, pilots, and other scientific and novel marketplace reviews, innovations, and opinions on topics including, but not limited to:

  • NFTs
    • NFT-based Identity Authentication, and Security Protocols
    • Non-Fungible Token Minting and Marketplaces
    • Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and Alternative Finance: Digitalization, Decentralization, and Tokenization
    • Play-To-Earn Games, and Play-To-Earn Tokens 
    • Strategic Pricing of NFT Based Assets 
    • The Business Models of NFT Marketplaces 
    • Asset Pricing Variables and Options for NFTs 
    • Venture Capital Investment and Sentiment for Healthcare NFT Markets 
    • NFT Datasets, Meta Analysis, and Novel Concepts 
  • Benefits and Challenges of Integrating Digital Twins Across Real and Virtual Worlds
  • Early Stage Failed and Scaled Services, Platforms, Architectures, and Business Models
  • 6G Techniques, Computational Algorithms, and Architectures
  • User Experience and Avatars Including Media (AI) CODECS
    • Efforts and Results to Bring Patients Closer to Providers and Investigators
  • Proposed Metaverse Standards, Guidelines, and Ethical Considerations
  • Benefits and Challenges of Integrating Blockchain Technology with XR Technologies Including The Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Haptic Devices
  • Blockchain Tech & Oracles for DeFi, NFTs, Tokenized Real World Assets, Gaming, Insurance, Supplychain, and Decentralized Identity
  • Privacy and Privatizing Health Data Including New and Proposed International Law(s)
  • Sustainability, Social Good, and Cross Boarder Interoperability
  • Experimental Demonstrations, Prototypes, and Methodologies
  • Smart Home Tech, Health Facilities, and Healthcare Games for Patient Populations (Pediatric – Senior) Intelligent Systems and Technologies
  • Custom Dapps and Smart Contracts
  • Data Monetization and Tokenomics

Key Dates

Accepted papers will be published continuously in BHTY (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together in the Annual BHTY Research Compendium as a collection.

Submission not appropriate for BHTY will be considered for Telehealth and Medicine Today (THMT)

Submission Guidelines

Manuscripts and Reports should present new, original results that are unpublished. Please prepare your manuscript as per BHTY guidelines here. Guidelines are the same for TMHT.

To submit a manuscript to this BHTY theme issue, please visit https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions. Be sure you have first registered. Include your ORCID ID or obtain one here.  Click the selection “Special Issue” for your submission.

Your manuscript will undergo full peer-review consistent with BHTY criteria here. All papers will appear together as a “collection” in the annual compendium.

APC

The theme issue Article Processing Charge (APC) is discounted and will be $650.00 USD. Waivers are available as per the BHTY Waiver Policy.

BHTY is Indexed In

  • PubMed and PubMed Central
  • SCOPUS
  • Engineering Village
  • ScienceOpen
  • Unpaywall
  • NEBIS
  • Google Scholar
  • Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER)
  • Index Copernicus
  • ProQuest Health & Medical Complete
  • ProQuest Public Health
  • ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Program
  • R Discovery

BHTY Theme Issue Editors

  • Prof Shafi Ahmed, University College London (UCL), UK
  • Wendy Charles, PhD, CIP, CCRP, CBP, Chief Scientific Officer, BurstIQ, USA
  • Jason Cross, PhD, JD, Co-Founder, Rymedi, USA
  • Lory Kehoe, Director, Coinbase, Ireland
  • Sweta Sneha, PhD, Executive Director of Healthcare Management Informatics. Professor of Information Systems, Coles College of Business, Kennesaw University, USA
  • Ingrid Vasiliu-Feltes MD, Founder and CEO at Institute for Science, Entrepreneurship and Investments; Chief Innovation Officer, GBA; Ethics WG Lead, World Metaverse Council, USA

BHTY Editors-in-Chief

 About

Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY) is the leading international open access journal that amplifies and disseminates distributed ledger technology research and innovations in the healthcare information systems, clinical computing, network technologies and biomedical sciences. Fields of interest include leveraging data science tools and techniques, health information systems interoperability, consent mechanisms, privacy preservation, security of health data, clinical support and clinical trials management, supply chain management, revenue cycle automation, immersive technologies, DAOs, tokenomics, and failed experiments in this specialty field of research. The preeminent international journal is published on a continuous basis to accelerate sharing rigorously vetted theoretical and experiential knowledge required for a global multi-disciplinary ecosystem. A world-class peer review board offers constructive commentary to strengthen work.

posted April 21, 2023

Special Theme Issue

Using Data and Analytics to Enhance Medical Science and Medical Technologies

Overview

Building robust research repositories must be amassed for health policy leaders, regulators, economists, corporations and clinicians to gauge what the potential and real world impact is for data science, data security, and cybersecurity in relation to medical science and medical technologies. This includes blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.

Why is public media negative? Is this justified when there is ample investor and corporate excitement? Why is it meaningful to embrace new cutting edge ideas such as ChatGPT? Is this being oversold, is it safe, and what are the downsides? Finally, can consumers trust regulators?

The simple fact is, following ethically adroit research findings can provide the answers.

Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY) is creating a special issue collection of original research, reviews, technical reports, pilot studies, and clinical or marketing research results to demonstrate inroads and innovations in this run away field.

Multidisciplinary experts are invited including scholars, graduate students, post docs, researchers, consultants, business, health systems, not-for-profit, and health professionals, to develop and submit research that instills collaborative discussion to explore how results and findings are related and in what new ways.

Topics of Interest

Areas of interest may include but are not limited to:

  • Precision medicine
  • Public health
  • Predictive modeling
  • Decentralized finance
  • Statistics and Machine Learning
  • Data Mining and Descriptive Analytics
  • Statistical Inference and Artificial Intelligence
  • Data and cybersecurity
  • Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Frameworks for blockchain/DLT
  • Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)
  • Aligning multiple stakeholders/consortium members with shared scaling objectives
  • Consensus Mechanisms
  • Anonymity and ethics
  • APIs, ETLs and SQLs
  • Visualization of data
  • Identification and stratification of populations
  • Optimized workflows and (cross border) interoperability
  • Incentivizing consumers and patients
  • Medical management and consumer confidence
  • Manufacturing Safety and Quality

Key Dates for Submissions

Submission Deadline:                                                May 1, 2023

Initial Decisions:                                                         June 1, 2023

Revisions Submitted and Decisions Made:             July 1, 2023

Publication:                                                                 August 2023

Submission Guidelines

Reports should present new, original results that are unpublished. Please prepare your manuscript as per BHTY guidelines here. 

To submit a manuscript to this BHTY theme issue, please visit https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions. Be sure you have first registered. Include your ORCID ID or obtain one here.  Click the selection “Special Issue” for your submission.

Your manuscript will undergo full peer-review consistent with BHTY criteria here. All papers will appear together in an e-collection (theme issue) edited by academics and experts listed below. 

Should an author require faster publication time, please submit your manuscript to the regular issue. The regular APC rates will apply.

APC

The theme issue Article Processing Charge (APC) is discounted and will be $650.00 USD. Waivers are available as per the BHTY Waiver Policy.

BHTY is Indexed In

  • PubMed (Accepted December 2022)
  • SCOPUS (Accepted January 2022)
  • Engineering Village
  • ScienceOpen
  • Unpaywall
  • NEBIS
  • Google Scholar
  • Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER)
  • Index Copernicus
  • ProQuest Health & Medical Complete
  • ProQuest Public Health
  • ProQuest Nursing & Allied Health Program
  • R Discovery

Journal Theme Issue Editors

Lead Editor

Michael Baron, EdD, Faculty, Cornell University/eCornell, Northwestern University, USA

Editors

Florence D. Hudson, BSE, Founder and CEO, FDHint, Special Advisor of NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence at Indiana University, Northeast Big Data Innovation Hub at Columbia University, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society - Standards Committee, USA

Imtiaz Khan, PhD, Associate Professor of Data Science, Cardiff School of Technologies, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Muthu Ramachandran, PhD, Educational & Research Consultant AI Tech, Leeds, UK and Visiting Professor at University of Southampton​, UK​

Horst Treiblmaier, PhD​,​ Professor, Head of the School of International Management, Modul University Vienna​, Austria​; Research Fellow​ at University College London Centre for Blockchain Technologies (CBT)​, UK​

Mueen Uddin, PhD, Associate Professor of Data and Cybersecurity​,​ College of Computing and Information Technology​, University Of Doha ​f​or Science and Technology​,​ Qatar

Prasad Kothari, MS, Advisor, Ramanujan Machine, India

posted January 30,2023

 

BHTY 2023 Call for Manuscripts 

BHTY is delighted to announce the new 2023 Call for Manuscripts, focused on blockchain for healthcare and data science. BHTY editors seek high quality and novel research, including failed experiments, to share with a global ecosystem. Visit the editorial board here.

Target Participants

BHTY invites scholars, graduate students, post docs, researchers, professors and market experts to develop and submit a manuscript addressing the opportunities, challenges, and real world case use in healthcare, which may be addressed by leveraging data science tools and techniques, and blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT).

Submitted manuscripts are expected to provide new conceptual, theoretical, and practical insights based on empirical data emerging from recent market or research activities. Use cases from demonstrably successful existing distributed ledger communities across a range of sectors are also welcome, as the learnings may be applicable in healthcare scenarios today or in the future.

Research Topics

Manuscripts may focus on, but are not limited to, the leverage of data, blockchain or digital ledger technology for healthcare, data science tools and techniques, and failed experiments including the following topics:

  • Precision medicine
  • Data sharing to inform public health
  • Security infrastructure requirements of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT) for healthcare
  • Quadruple Helix Innovation - encompassing science, policy, industry and society
  • Frameworks, methods and tools to develop and align blockchain/DLT-based projects for multiple parties with Peer-to-Peer (P2P) capabilities
  • Decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and varieties of consensus-oriented blockchain-based associations
  • Cybersecurity of distributed ledger communities, including permissioned, permissionless, and hybrid permissions, as well as exchange and non-exchange cases
  • Aligning multiple stakeholders and consortium members in a distributed ledger-based community with shared ecosystem scaling objectives
  • Specific use cases may include:
    • Patient health records
    • Human and social aspects
    • Health systems interoperability
    • Patient and device identity management
    • Legal and policy challenges
    • Digital tokens and incentives
    • Medical payments and billing
    • Data security, privacy, anonymity
    • Healthcare operations
    • Data provenance
    • Fraud detection and prevention
    • Decentralized trust management
    • Pharmaceutical supply chain
    • Population health use cases
    • Social determinants of health
    • Clinical trials and clinical research
    • Health equity and disparities
    • Genomic and imaging data
    • COVID-19 pandemic applications
    • Facilitation of intervention and implementation strategies
    • Vaccination passports
    • Big data management in health
    • Improved health, prevention, diagnosis and treatment

Journal statistics (2022)

  • Reject Rate 56%
  • Days to First Editorial Decision  23
  • Days to Accept  63 
  • Acceptance Rate  25%
  • Average days to publication   73

Note: BHTY maintains high editorial review standards reflected by acceptance in leading indexes. Author revisions add days to turnaround, acceptance, and publication timeframes. Journal staff is happy to streamline papers for authors requiring fast turnaround. There is no extra charge. 

Advantages of publishing in Blockchain in Healthcare Today  

  1. Fast and user-friendly submission portal
  2. Excellent customer service –calls and emails answered in detail within 24-48 hours
  3. Qualify for the Editors Best Article Award amplifying work across media announced at the Annual ConV2X Symposium
  4. High-quality rigorous peer review
  5. High market and public media exposure to amplify research and results
  6. Read across 120 countries worldwide, with 63 -75,000 impressions/mo as per Google Analytics
  7. Accepted to PubMed, Scopus, EngineeringVillage, Proquest indexes and others
  8. 100% OPEN ACCESS - there are No Paywalls or limits to article access for maximum exposure and reuse by authors
  9. Video abstracts, Plain language, and Graphical summaries to amplify work
  10. NEW Transparent Peer Review (TPR) option

How to Participate

Submission Portal
Authors must follow guidelines published on the Blockchain and Healthcare Today (BHTY) Submission Portal.

Use the original research article below to model your manuscript:

BHTY is published on a no-deadline continuous basis to reflect a rapid, evolving field.

Audience:   Viewership includes leadership from research, business, universities, consultants, entrepreneurs/startups, biopharma/device/pharmacy, government, policy, NGO, engineers, health information technologists, cybersecurity, auditors, computational engineers, computer scientists, data scientists, healthcare network users, public health, hospitals and innovation labs, and payor organizations  across the globe - and invites all those with an interest in the latest knowledge on blockchain technology and DLT to join the community. 

Note: APC applies unless your university or organization has a Publish and Read Agreement on file.

Waivers will be granted UPON REQUEST to lower-middle income countries as per the World Bank (details here).

 

Call for Papers

Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY), is pleased to announce a new, annual, Call for Manuscripts, specifically aimed for identifying and learning from Negative, Unconventional, Null, Neutral, and Failed Research.

Progress in science is not only made based on positive data, but also on negative results. Scientists have become too accustomed to celebrating only success, and have forgotten that most technological advances stem from failure. When negative results aren’t published in high-impact journals, other scientists can’t learn from them and end up repeating failed experiments, leading to a waste of public funds and a delay in genuine progress.

Negative results are results that do not support a research hypothesis and nullify the aim of the research. Negative, or null results, are also important because they contribute to our knowledge of the topic as much as positive results do. This is critically important in new research fields and markets that are evolving in real world applications and scaled implementations.

Understandably, researchers are particularly challenged to disclose negative results that are not consistent with previously published positive data. In addition, positive findings are more likely to generate citations and funding for additional research, but NEGATIVE DATA saves institutions funding wasteful projects and puts the ecosystem on the right track for faster solutions and outcomes that benefit the entire ecosystem.

Partners in Digital Health would like to facilitate these critical efforts to accelerate research success, augment true innovation, and create a trusted repository where research, public, and private communities can find unconventional answers to streamline meaningful solutions.

The publisher will WAIVE THE APC for these manuscripts.

We know such papers are not typically cited, and discouraged in academia, however, negative results are essential to advancing knowledge in the field, and may even contribute to changing reward systems in academia in the future.

Topic areas will include but are not limited to the following:

  • What and why the research did not work, eg., rigor in study design, lack of funding, issue with patient recruitment, support from superiors or colleagues, bias, etc
  • Analysis of impact
  • Consequences of negative research
  • Lessons on mitigating negative results and why
  • Benefits of sharing research
  • Good research practices, best practices
  • Key personal learnings
  • Addressing issues of reproducibility
  • Ethical violations 

This list is not comprehensive. We welcome the opportunity to consider papers on related and complementary topics.

Submission Requirements

  • Papers should be original submissions not previously published or under active consideration by other journal
  • Papers will be 3,000 maximum word count
  • Submissions must include a section for an analysis and recommendations for future researchers, and journal readers

The APC for these papers will be waived

To submit a paper, please click the journal link below and follow instructions.

All papers will be peer reviewed and follow the journal’s peer review process and workflow.

There is no deadline for these manuscripts.

If you have questions about the suitability of a particular paper prior to submitting, please contact the managing editor, John Russo, PharmD, at

j.russo@partnersindigitalhealth.com or info@partnersindigitalhealth.com

 

Submission Portal: https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions

Posted September 5, 2022

Special Theme Issue: Blockchain Tracking and Tracing for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Device Industry

Blockchain in Healthcare Today (BHTY) is delighted to announce the theme issue entitled “Blockchain Tracking and Tracing for the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Device Industry."

Blockchain technology offers reliable end-to-end tracking, monitoring and verification of drugs, including vaccines, across the supply chain. It enables faster manufacturing and resiliency including essential detection and correction for processes that improve productivity, efficiency, compliance and patient safety for the development, testing, packaging, and distribution of drug products in the pharmaceutical and healthcare device industry.

In the USA, the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) will require full traceability of drugs by 2023. In developing countries, The Health Research Funding organization reports 10–30% of available drugs are fake, while the WHO has reported approximately 30% of medicines sold in Africa, Asia, and Latin America is counterfeit. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports counterfeit drugs pose a serious risk to public health and safety, while the OECD has reported the counterfeit pharmaceutical industry is worth $200 billion annually.

Technological solutions that provide track and trace capabilities to manufacturers, distributors, and others in the healthcare supply chain can keep global health citizens safer and more confident about the integrity of their prescription drugs and online pharmacy purchases. Distributed ledger technology can be used ensure the integrity and efficacy of pharmaceuticals by monitoring suppliers, verifying quality and authenticity of the supply chain while enhancing quality control, auditing and standards in tandem with NFC, RFID, QR Codes, GPS, metal tags — technologies that are based on the contactless transmission of data. 

Blockchain technology can be a solution that also increases trust toward a brand ensuring product authenticity throughout the supply chain. BHTY is pleased to issue this critical Call for Papers to examine blockchain technology applications and use in the pharmaceutical and device supply chain in healthcare.  Topics of interest may include but are not limited to:

  • Blockchain compatibility with QR codes, NFC, RFID or GPS
  • Contactless transfer of data
  • Counterfeit drugs and fraud
  • Expiration date
  • Global trade and Import/Export
  • Health policy and global implications (meeting SDGs)
  • Inventory and order management
  • Pandemic (PPP) Demand planning
  • Product and/or vaccine authenticity
  • Smart supply chain with IoT and Cloud
  • Smart tags
  • Supplier management
  • Supply chain analytics
  • Supply chain models and management
  • Supply chain optimization

Key Dates for Submissions

Submission Deadline:                                                April 30, 2022

Initial Decisions:                                                          June 15, 2022

Revisions Submitted and Decisions Made:            August 15, 2022

Publication:                                                                  October 30, 2022

Submission Guidelines

Papers should present new, original results and reviews that are unpublished. Please prepare your manuscript as per BHTY guidelines here. 

To submit a manuscript to this BHTY theme issue, please visit https://blockchainhealthcaretoday.com/index.php/journal/about/submissions. Be sure you have first registered. Include your ORCID ID if you have one.  Click the selection “Special Issue” for your submission.

Your manuscript will undergo full peer-review, consistent with BHTY criterion here. All papers will appear together in an e-collection (theme issue) guest edited by the academics listed below. 

The theme issue article processing charge (APC) is discounted 30% and will be $1,015. (the APC for the open access specialty journal is regularly $1,450, a discount of US $435.00). Waivers are available as per the BHTY Waiver Policy.

Indexed In

SCOPUS, Engineering Village, Index Copernicus, Unpaywall, NEBIS, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research (GFMER), ScienceOpen, Google Scholar, and the PKP metadata harvester.

Journal Editors-in-Chief

Bill Buchanan, OBE, Professor, School of Computing, Edinburgh Napier University; Fellow of the BCS, United Kingdom

John D. Halamka, MD, MS, President, Mayo Clinic Platform, USA