Blockchain for Healthcare and Medical Systems

Abstract

Blockchain is one of the trendy technologies in the current era. All industries are merging blockchain with their production line to benefit from its features such as security and decentralized data. One of the main problems in the healthcare system is the lack of interoperability (i.e., data should be patient-centered and not institution-centered). Healthcare information systems, in the current state, cannot communicate. Each organization works within its boundaries and owns its data. To make this shift, many challenges should be solved such as data privacy, standards, scalability, and others. Blockchain can solve these problems by giving the patients control over their data; therefore, they can share it with any institution for a time period. It is expected that blockchain will improve healthcare data management. In this chapter, the authors study the opportunity of blockchain to leverage biomedical and healthcare applications and research. Blockchain also contributes to the medication manufacturing area.