Shaping Interoperability through Blockchain: Exploring Actor-Driven Adoption of Blockchain Technology for Patient-Owned Health Data in Swedish Healthcare
2025 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (Two Years)), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesis
Abstract [en]
This thesis investigates how actors shape the adoption of blockchain-based systems for patient-owned health data in the context of Swedish healthcare, with a particular focus on enabling interoperability. The study applies the Innovation Translation framework in a deductive, qualitative research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and secondary sources, and analyzed across the four translation stages of problematization, interessement, enrolment, and mobilisation, allowing the dynamics of both human and non-human actors to be systematically traced. The findings show that adoption is not driven by technology alone but by the dynamic roles actors play in shaping its meaning and use. Patients articulate demands for control and transparency, clinicians weigh usability against workflow constraints, policymakers and regulators define compliance boundaries, while technical artefacts and standards act as non-human actors that enable or restrict possibilities. These roles are fluid and continuously renegotiated, influencing both opportunities and barriers in the move toward interoperability. The study concludes that blockchain’s capacity to advance interoperable, patient-owned health data can only be realized when innovation is embedded within participatory governance, inclusive design, and long-term institutional commitment.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. , p. 137
Keywords [en]
Blockchain; Interoperability; Patient-owned data; Actor-Network Theory; Innovation Translation; Healthcare governance; Sweden
National Category
Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-57835OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-57835DiVA, id: diva2:2014716
Subject / course
Business Management
Educational program
Master's Programme in Industrial Management and Innovation, 120 credits
Presentation
2025-05-22, S1016, Halmstad University, Halmstad, 10:05 (English)
Supervisors
Examiners
2025-11-192025-11-192025-11-19Bibliographically approved