Abstract
Blockchain solutions offer efficient approaches for trustworthy data management, especially in the medical field when storing and processing sensitive patient data. Many institutional and industrial facilities have already recognized the importance of the technology for the health sector and have also formulated basic ideas, concepts and main use cases, but concrete implementations and executions are comparatively rare. This mini review examines current research on specific blockchain implementations in healthcare that go beyond the state of concept studies or theoretical implementation ideas and describes the most promising systems based on systematic literature research. The review shows that secure storage and easy access to complete patient data is becoming increasingly important. Blockchain technology can be used as a secure, transparent and digital way to meet these needs. Hybrid solutions consisting of conventional data storage and blockchain-based access management are increasingly being developed and implemented. The automation of blockchain processes through smart contracts is also recommended. The review further reveals ambiguities in the use of permissioned and permissionless blockchain frameworks, machine learning (ML) integration as well as the question of which data should be stored in the blockchain and how this should be viewed legally. Therefore, there is still a need for further research, especially on these aspects, in order to further establish the use of blockchains in healthcare.
Highlights
In the course of their lives, patients generate data that are stored in central databases as a result of various events at different facilities or via different software structures (Azaria et al, 2016; Chen et al, 2018)
We identified and examined the following research question: What are the important and implemented as well as programmed implementations of blockchain technology in healthcare that go beyond the state of concept studies or theoretical implementation ideas?
The development of an electronic medical record is discussed in many publications and linked to the principles of blockchain technology
Summary
In the course of their lives, patients generate data that are stored in central databases as a result of various events at different facilities or via different software structures (Azaria et al, 2016; Chen et al, 2018). The blockchain is essentially a distributed database structure for the medical data in which all transactions or digital events are checked and stored by all parties participating in the database (Crosby et al, 2016; Huang and Foysal, 2021; Wu et al, 2021) This decentralization of the data as well as the higher security and transparency in data processing improve interoperability, quality and cooperation in the healthcare system enormously, reduce administrative costs and increase the authenticity and verifiability of the information (Azaria et al, 2016; Narikimilli et al, 2020)
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