Abstract
This study presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of research on blockchain applications in the healthcare domain. The review incorporated 42 articles presenting state-of-the-art knowledge on current implications and gaps pertaining to the use of blockchain technology for improving healthcare processes. The SLR findings indicate that blockchain is being used to develop novel and advanced interventions to improve the prevalent standards of handling, sharing, and processing of medical data and personal health records. The application of blockchain technology is undergoing a conceptual evolution in the healthcare industry where it has added significant value through improved efficiency, access control, technological advancement, privacy protection, and security of data management processes. The findings also suggest that the extant limitations primarily pertain to model performance, as well as the constraints and costs associated with implementation. An integrated framework is presented to address potential areas wherein future researchers can contribute significant value, including addressing concerns regarding regulatory compliance, system architecture, and data protection. Finally, the SLR suggests that future research can facilitate the widespread deployment of blockchain applications to address critical issues related to medical diagnostics, legal compliance, avoiding fraud, and improving patient care in cases of remote monitoring or emergencies.
Highlights
Blockchain was originally introduced as a mechanism to power Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008), but has evolved to the point of being referred to as a foundational technology for multiple decentralized applications (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017)
This review suggests that blockchain has seen a recent integration in the healthcare domain because the earliest article included in the sample was published in 2016
Extant recommendations from reviewed studies were synthesized, and in conjunction with the explicated gaps in prior research, were used to develop a research framework to advance scholarly work in this domain. These findings are discussed at length and a brief overview is presented in Table 4 and 5
Summary
Blockchain was originally introduced as a mechanism to power Bitcoin (Nakamoto, 2008), but has evolved to the point of being referred to as a foundational technology for multiple decentralized applications (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017). Blockchain is being touted as a useful technology for managing sensitive data, especially within the sectors of healthcare, medical research and insurance (Meinert et al, 2019). The increasing digitization of healthcare has further led to the acknowledgment of concerns related to secure storage, ownership, sharing of patients’ personal health records, and allied medical data (Meinert et al, 2019). Blockchain has been suggested as a way to solve critical challenges faced by healthcare, such as secured sharing of medical records and compliance with data privacy laws (Rupasinghe et al, 2019)
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