Blockchain in healthcare and health sciences - A scoping review

By Anton Hasselgren, Katina Kralevska, Danilo Gligoroski, Sindre A. Pedersen, Arild Faxvaag. Int. J. Medical Informatics, 2019

535 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BACKGROUND Blockchain can be described as an immutable ledger, logging data entries in a decentralized manner. This new technology has been suggested to disrupt a wide range of data-driven domains, including the health domain. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to systematically review, assess and synthesize peer-reviewed publications utilizing/proposing to utilize blockchain to improve processes and services in healthcare, health sciences and health education. METHOD A structured literature search on the topic was conducted in October 2018 relevant bibliographic databases. RESULT 39 publications fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The result indicates that Electronic Health Records and Personal Health Records are the most targeted areas using blockchain technology. Access control, interoperability, provenance and data integrity are all issues that are meant to be improved by blockchain technology in this field. Ethereum and Hyperledger fabric seem to be the most used platforms/frameworks in this domain. CONCLUSION This study shows that the endeavors of using blockchain technology in the health domain are increasing exponentially. There are areas within the health domain that potentially could be highly impacted by blockchain technology.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e21700b05fc480d4f2c18462dbeaaf90dadb378d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Artificial Intelligence

1. Jun Zhao
2. Chau Yuen
3. Dusist Niyato
4. Sumei Sun
5. Kwok-Yan Lam
6. Zhiyuan Liu
7. Maosong Sun
8. Kang Liu

In Information Systems

1. Jun Zhao
2. Chau Yuen
3. Dusist Niyato

Citations in the corpus

• Blockchain for the Internet of Vehicles Towards Intelligent Transportation Systems: A Survey (2020, background): “A substantial effort has been highlighted to converge blockchain with smart health system in [39]–[44].”
• The Recent Progress and Applications of Digital Technologies in Healthcare: A Review (2020, background): “The third problem is abuses in the healthcare ecosystem that share the same trust (e.g., problems with fake drugs, procedures, skills, and patients) [60].”