Blockchain Applications in Healthcare Industry : A literature survey

Abstract: Background: Blockchain technology may seem like a complex system, but it is simply a decentralized database designed to remove the need for third-party organisation in data management. Blockchain is being researched for uses in the various industry out of which healthcare is one. Healthcare industry suffers from various issues such as imperfect data, a broken medical history that is split across various healthcare institutions, and so on. Blockchain might be the approach it needs to optimize it to a greater level of functioning. Objectives: The objectives of this report are to understand whether the decentralization feature along with other features of blockchain technology can be advantageous to the healthcare industry and also to summarize the previous implementation for the use cases of the technology in the domain. Methods: The method used is a literature survey. We perform a study selection process in four steps. After each step, the number of publications is reduced as unwanted publications are omitted using search strings, inclusion and exclusion criteria. We even conducted a study quality assessment which helps us analyse the quality offindings from the final set of selected papers in answering the research questions. Results: We have summarized the findings from the 36 selected papers from the study selection process according to the research questions. Conclusions: Blockchain technology provides data security, once any data is registered on the blockchain it cannot be altered or manipulated. It eliminates the need for a third party to verify the transactions on the chain. As blockchain is a budding new technology with very little age under its belt, there needs to more research on the topic before this can be applied over a large scale of systems that are operating in critical areas such as healthcare. Even though implementing blockchain for the use cases such as Electronic Medical Records (EMRs), research trials and so on, it can not be done immediately as the exposure of this technology to the common public and healthcare individuals is very limited.