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As the reviewers acknowledged, the revised manuscript addressed most concerns in the previous version. It is my pleasure to accept the current version for publication.
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The authors have addressed and/or rebutted any comments or revisions I had requested in the previous round for this paper.
Authors should proofread paper carefully prior to final publication
The paper was inproved and it is rady for publication.
Ok
Expwrimental section was performed in proporcje way and shows great results.
The title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion are appropriate for the content of the text. Furthermore, the article is well constructed, the experiments are well conducted, and analysis is well performed. The figures are relevant, high quality, well labelled and described.
This is a review paper, so no experimental design. However, the discussion is original and the research is within the scope of the journal. Research question is well defined, relevant and meaningful. The overview and their proposal for a more suitable technology is highly technical, ethical and logistical.
The introduction is comprehensive. The findings are meaningful. The conclusions are well stated and relevant to the research questions.
This paper was aiming at the challenges of EHR and genomic data sharing. The authors discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the blockchain technology implementation in genomics and healthcare applications. Furthermore, they proposed the general blockchain structure based on Ethereum, which is a more suitable technology for the genomic data sharing platforms.
Major Comments:
I’m wondering if it is worth mentioning that one of the key disadvantages of blockchain technology is the inefficiency of storing and querying data. And the computational efficiency is also low compared to traditional centralized databases.
Response: Thank you for raising this important point. Blockchain can be very beneficial, but it does not mean that it is going to be a complete revolution. There are still too many pitfalls and improper parts of the blockchain, especially in healthcare management. We completely agree with the intent of this comment. Hence, this important point is mentioned in the revised manuscript. Please see Conclusion chapter on Page 21 of the revised manuscript. The disadvantages of each project are also discussed in the revised manuscript.
Feedback: Thanks for adding it to the revised version. The conclusion session and discussion session looks good to me.
I’m wondering if blockchain-based technologies support cloud computing and commonly used software services, tools & apps?
Response: Thank you for highlighting the relationship between cloud computing and blockchain. It is very common to use them to support each other. Blockchain is a distributed and decentralized system that works on a P2P network. Also, the smart contract mechanism is using its own virtual machine. When we build a proper design, it is possible to use software tools and/or apps on a blockchain platform. We can consider a blockchain application as a distributed app (Dapp). Recently, interoperability of different blockchain networks is also possible. Thus, it can be mentioned that blockchain-based platforms can support cloud computing or software tools distributedly. Please see the following answer as well.
Feedback: Thanks for the clarification. It totally makes sense to me.
The words “data commons”, “data ecosystems”, “data cloud architecture” are really popular in the field of genomics data sharing. And they sound similar and are really confusing to researchers. Do you think it is worth adding those terms and explain a little bit?
Response: Thank you for highlighting this important point. We believe that discussing these terms makes the manuscript more strengthen. We mentioned them in the Introduction section of the revised manuscript, please see Page 2. We also changed the organization in the revised manuscript and mention the evolution of blockchain technology in the healthcare management field. We discuss data commons and data ecosystems with blockchain timeline too. We believe that blockchain has a potential for contributing to data ecosystems.
Feedback: I strongly agree with you on this. And thanks for supplementing the introduction section. The new structure of the revised manuscript looks clear and straightforward to me.
Minor Comments:
The Figure 5 is hollow, and it is a little bit hard for the readers to differentiate the colors. I would recommend making it solid, with colors filled in.
Response: Authors fully agree with the intent of this comment and all figures are edited in the revised manuscript. Also, we would like to mention that some of the figures are totally changed in the revised manuscript, to address some other comments, e.g., removing stopped projects from the paper.
Feedback: Thanks for the updates for the figures. I also did see the comments raised by other reviewers in terms of the figures. The new set of figures look much more clear and informative. I don’t have any concern for the figures. Thanks!
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1. The author should emphasize the advantages of this paper, more specifically, topic that introduced in this paper while not mentioned in other survey should be illustrated.
2. Open Issues must be classified and mentioned in the conclusion.
There are several issues with this paper. Firstly, this review misses many relevant papers. It has been pointed out by three reviewers. Reviewer 2 believes that most of the papers are outdated and the authors should analyze mainly the solution in the last 2 years (2021 and 2020). Reviewer 4 also suggests adding more papers especially those in 2021 and 2020. Secondly, there is a lot of room for improvement in the presentation, including the organization of the paper (see comments of reviewers 1 and 2). In addition, some in-depth analysis needs to be added. Please consider the suggestions made by reviewer 4.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: It is PeerJ policy that additional references suggested during the peer-review process should only be included if the authors are in agreement that they are relevant and useful #]
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
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In this paper, the authors aim to highlight the challenges of EHR and genomic data sharing. They also attempt to answer "Why" or "Why not" the blockchain technology is suitable for genomics and healthcare applications in detail.
I think overall, the readability of the paper should be improved. There are many issues in verb tense and noun usage with overuse of "the" common from non-native speakers. I would recommend that the paper be professionally proofread.
Content wise, the following revisions are needed:
Subsections should also be numbered
Some sort of publication analysis should be presented early on in the survey with some insight into publications.
In general, more of the info presented should also be summarized in a collection of tables, flow charts or images. These items should be placed inline for reviewers to see in the revised version.
The paper lacks any proper organization in sections/subsections etc this should be addressed
The images given at the end of the paper are all of very low quality, please improve both quality of the image plus the actual presentation of them.
The tables (first column) should also give reference as to where to find more info about the item listed
The references and literature search has missed many papers in EHR and blockchain, see here some examples
Ramachandran S, et al. A Review on Blockchain-Based Strategies for Management of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). In2020 International Conference on Smart Electronics and Communication (ICOSEC) 2020 Sep 10 (pp. 341-346). IEEE.
Połap D, et al. Agent architecture of an intelligent medical system based on federated learning and blockchain technology. Journal of Information Security and Applications. 2021 May 1;58:102748.
Srivastava G, et al. The future of blockchain technology in healthcare internet of things security. Blockchain Cybersecurity, Trust and Privacy. 2020:161-84.
In the paper, the authors analyzed some basic solutions in the blockchain. I cannot agree that this paper should be accepted in the current form. The authors focused mainly on older solutions and as a survey, they should analyze mainly the last 2 years (2021 and 2020). Therefore in my opinion this paper is outdated.
Rewrite the paper to the current state of research, focus also on the application in practical solutions with machine learning like federated learning, etc. It is the latest approach in medical blockchains.
Focus also on practical differences between solutions and obtained results. Add some tables/figures to show more details in the literature. Compare the results, make some statistics, etc.
Add also more complex detailed discussion about future recommendations and compare your information with a paper:
Blockchain for healthcare data management: opportunities, challenges, and future recommendations, Neural Computing and Applications.
Write what exactly is the difference between your paper to this one.
In the paper, the authors analyzed some basic solutions in the blockchain. I cannot agree that this paper should be accepted in the current form. The authors focused mainly on older solutions and as a survey, they should analyze mainly the last 2 years (2021 and 2020). Therefore in my opinion this paper is outdated.
Rewrite the paper to the current state of research, focus also on the application in practical solutions with machine learning like federated learning, etc. It is the latest approach in medical blockchains.
Focus also on practical differences between solutions and obtained results. Add some tables/figures to show more details in the literature. Compare the results, make some statistics, etc.
Add also more complex detailed discussion about future recommendations and compare your information with a paper:
Blockchain for healthcare data management: opportunities, challenges, and future recommendations, Neural Computing and Applications.
Write what exactly is the difference between your paper to this one.
See these papers from this year:
1) VFChain: Enabling Verifiable and Auditable Federated Learning via Blockchain Systems, IEE Transactions
2) Agent architecture of an intelligent medical system based on federated learning and blockchain technology, Journal of Information Security and Applications
3)An intelligent internet of things-based secure healthcare framework using blockchain technology with an optimal deep learning model, Journal of Supercomputing
4)Multi-modal secure healthcare data dissemination framework using blockchain in IoMT, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
BASIC REPORTING
The title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion are appropriate for the content of the text. Furthermore, the article is well constructed, the experiments are well conducted, and analysis is well performed. The figures are relevant, high quality, well labelled and described.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
This is a review paper, so no experimental design. However, the discussion is original and the research is within the scope of the journal. Research question is well defined, relevant and meaningful. The overview and their proposal for a more suitable technology is highly technical, ethical and logistical.
VALIDITY OF THE FINDINGS
The introduction is comprehensive. The findings are meaningful. The conclusions are well stated and relevant to the research questions.
This paper was aiming at the challenges of EHR and genomic data sharing. The authors discussed the advantages and disadvantages of the blockchain technology implementation in genomics and healthcare applications. Furthermore, they proposed the general blockchain structure based on Ethereum, which is a more suitable technology for the genomic data sharing platforms.
Editorial Criteria
BASIC REPORTING
The title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion are appropriate for the content of the text. Furthermore, the article is well constructed, the experiments are well conducted, and analysis is well performed. The figures are relevant, high quality, well labelled and described.
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
This is a review paper, so no experimental design. However, the discussion is original and the research is within the scope of the journal. Research question is well defined, relevant and meaningful. The overview and their proposal for a more suitable technology is highly technical, ethical and logistical.
VALIDITY OF THE FINDINGS
The introduction is comprehensive. The findings are meaningful. The conclusions are well stated and relevant to the research questions.
Overall, I think this review paper is novel and will be of interest to others in the community of omics data and EHR data sharing. This review paper does an excellent job outlining the urgent need to better manage the genomics data and further discussed the pros and cons of blockchain technology utilization in the field. In general, the work is convincing except some major and minor comments below:
Major Comments:
I’m wondering if it is worth mentioning that one of the key disadvantages of blockchain technology is the inefficiency of storing and querying data. And the computational efficiency is also low compared to traditional centralized databases.
I’m wondering if blockchain-based technologies support cloud computing and commonly used software services, tools & apps?
The words “data commons”, “data ecosystems”, “data cloud architecture” are really popular in the field of genomics data sharing. And they sound similar and are really confusing to researchers. Do you think it is worth adding those terms and explain a little bit?
Minor Comments:
The Figure 5 is hollow, and it is a little bit hard for the readers to differentiate the colors. I would recommend making it solid, with colors filled in.
- Paper is informal in many paragraphs; the authors must have corrected it.
- English must have improvements
- Recent resources must add to references, for example, 2020 and 2021 papers.
- The introduction section is too short to detail the motivations and challenges of this paper.
- Environmental features should be considered in terms of classification
-It should be compared with previous review papers. And its superiority over previous works should be determined.
-Healthcare environment characteristics must have more detail in this paper; it is necessary to identify the main features of the health care areas, a taxonomy or a framework must have provided, and based on that, the effects of using the block chain to become apparent. It can help in choosing methods in other articles or upcoming developments
- It is suggested that non-functional requirements are categorized, and the effects of using the block chain be illustrated.
-It is suggested that new articles that have been reviewed in recent years be reviewed to determine the advantages of the article over them.
- The simulation and implementation part of the article is examined and added to the tables, and converted into graphs if necessary
- The authors must Identify important parameters for evaluating each method or algorithm
- Examples given in the text should be transferred to health-related areas
This article should have a special advantage over other articles or previous reports that can be used later. For this reason, it is suggested that in some cases, the studies be done in more depth and detail and the author's analysis and conclusion be added to it.
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