The rise of blockchain technology in healthcare for the preservation of patient-centric health records

Abstract

Distributed systems are becoming more popular because of the advantages of using the benefits of blockchain technology including data authenticity, data privacy, data transparency, data scaling, and digital assets. Because of the digitization of physical documents, there has been a rise in the amount of healthcare data generated from a variety of sources, including hospital records, radiographic pictures, and sensors. That need to be collected and analyzed. Some of the information contained in the various databases pertaining to patients always remain confidential because of the healthcare record privacy. Blockchain technology, in contrast to more traditional approaches, permits the direct peer-to-peer exchange of electronic information stored in decentralized and distributed systems as a sequence of blocks or blockchain. Therefore, the implementation of blockchain technology in the healthcare sector is widely considered an efficient technique to ensure enhanced security in healthcare-related applications. Immutability, scalability, privacy built-in, and data traceability features of blockchain technology can be utilized to monitor the distribution of medications, drug delivery management, and appropriate supply chain patterns. Besides advancements, there are still various challenging issues, as blockchain technology has its own distinct limitations and constraints, such as mining incentives, mining threats, and key management. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the applications of blockchain technology in the healthcare industry. Particularly, healthcare data management, along with the exchange of medical records sharing, images, and reports, is the focus of the study. Finally, advantages and disadvantages are highlighted in order to help researchers in the field.