Blockchain Technology in Healthcare, Current and Future Trends – A Systematic Review

Abstract

Abstract Background: Blockchain, since its advent in 2009, found purpose in various fields like supply chain, e-governance, healthcare, and dispute settlements. This study brings into perspective the current security status of data in the healthcare domain and identifies blockchain use cases in the same. The aim is to circle down on the reasons for adoption of the blockchain technology and the challenges faced by these implementations. Methods: An automated literature search was conducted on selected databases which specifically focused on healthcare implementations between the years 2016 and 2021 using “blockchain” as the primary keyword. This article considers implementations and proposals of blockchains within the healthcare domain and focuses on identifying why a particular blockchain has been selected over the pool available. Results: The search convened with 92 identified blockchain healthcare systems. The study identified that the most popular blockchains in the healthcare domain is Ethereum (33.6%) and Hyperledger (17.3%). Data sharing (44.5%) and data integrity (41.3%) are identified as the major challenges that have been addressed by the identified literature. This study concludes by bringing the future of blockchains into perspective, which helps identify the necessity of continued research work. Conclusions: Building on current healthcare security status, the most popular blockchains in the healthcare domains were identified and the reasons for the adoption of specific blockchain over the various available today were discussed in detail. The stakeholders of such blockchain implementations were also identified along with the challenges that have been successfully addressed including data sharing, integrity, verification, and traceability.