Application of Blockchain in E-Healthcare Systems

Abstract

The e-healthcare system maintains sensitive and private information about patients. In any e-healthcare system, exchanging health information is often required, making privacy and security a primary concern for e-healthcare systems. Another major issue is that existing e-healthcare systems use centralized servers. These centralized servers require high infrastructure and maintenance costs for day-to-day services. Along with that, server failure may affect the working of e-healthcare systems drastically and may create life-threatening situations for patients. Blockchain technology is a very useful way to provide decentralized, secure storage for healthcare information. A blockchain is a time-stamped series of immutable records of data that is managed by a cluster of computers not owned by any single entity. These blocks create a chain of immutable, tamper-proof blocks in a ledger. This chapter will discuss the different aspects of blockchain and its application in different fields of the e-healthcare system.