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This study aims to explore the current status, potential applications, and future directions of blockchain technology in supply chain management. A literature survey, along with an analytical review, of blockchain-based supply chain research was conducted to better understand the trajectory of related research and shed light on the benefits, issues, and challenges in the blockchain-supply-chain paradigm. A selected corpus comprising 106 review articles was analyzed to provide an overview of the use of blockchain and smart contracts in supply chain management. The diverse industrial applications of these technologies in various sectors have increasingly received attention by researchers, engineers, and practitioners. Four major issues: traceability and transparency, stakeholder involvement and collaboration, supply chain integration and digitalization, and common frameworks on blockchain-based platforms, are critical for future orientation. Traditional supply chain activities involve several intermediaries, trust, and performance issues. The potential of blockchain can be leveraged to disrupt supply chain operations for better performance, distributed governance, and process automation. This study contributes to the comprehension of blockchain applications in supply chain management and provides a blueprint for these applications from the perspective of literature analysis. Future efforts regarding technical adoption/diffusion, block-supply chain integration, and their social impacts were highlighted to enrich the research scope. INDEX TERMS Blockchain, digital ledger, distributed ledger technology, logistics, shared ledger, smart contract, supply chain management, systematic literature review, value chain.

This paper explores a potential paradigm shift in trade finance utilizing blockchain technology. Traditionally, the centralized operating model has governed trade finance and the manner in which traders handle business processes. However, such heavy reliance on centralized authorities has made for poor performance, the lack of flexibility and transparency, and vulnerability to malicious alteration. The blockchain, as a distributed ledger technology (DLT), has attracted growing attention and has the potential to disrupt legacy finance procedures such as payment by letter of credit (L/C). International trade players may benefit from the technological reengineering of financial processes through the implementation of blockchain- and smart contract-based platforms. From the conceptual perspective of a paradigm shift, this study analyzes the feasibility of blockchain innovation in trade finance through modern blockchain-based L/C initiatives. Moreover, this study also explores blockchain applications in terms of logistics tracking and how it integrates with trade finance procedures. This study contributes to the understanding of a blockchain paradigm shift with a multi-case study. The results may illuminate the potential future application of blockchain finance and provide researchers with an illustrative example of other finance-related capabilities. Studies of trade-related topics such as customs clearances, insurance, and logistics applications need to be addressed in the future to create a comprehensively trustless environment and facilitate the automation of trade.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability of blockchain technology in international trade process from a perspective of letter of credit payment. Design/methodology/approach A blockchain-based re-engineering process is designed by employing the blockchain and its affiliated smart contract technology to harvest the benefits of distributed ledger and distributed business workflow automation. Findings Comparative analysis and feasibility study were conducted to identify and validate the prospects, in terms of facilitating process flow and enhancing overall trade performance, of the proposed blockchain-based international trade process model. Practical implications Traditional trade processes suffer from a great number of issues about intermediaries, information latency and trust, which, in turn, hinder overall process efficiency. The emerging blockchain technology may have potentials to mitigate those issues by revolutionizing business processes across enterprise borders in various industries. Originality/value This study contributes to the conceptual design of a blockchain- and smart-contract-based process along with a provision of practical case in business process re-engineering. Further endeavors devoted to blockchain research and application across different sectors are suggested to reach better performance of business process operations.

Background Blockchain technology is leveraging its innovative potential in various sectors and its transformation of business-related processes has drawn much attention. Topics of research interest have focused on medical and health care applications, while research implications have generally concluded in system design, literature reviews, and case studies. However, a general overview and knowledge about the impact on the health care ecosystem is limited. Objective This paper explores a potential paradigm shift and ecosystem evolution in health care utilizing blockchain technology. Methods A literature review with a case study on a pioneering initiative was conducted. With a systematic life cycle analysis, this study sheds light on the evolutionary development of blockchain in health care scenarios and its interactive relationship among stakeholders. Results Four stages—birth, expansion, leadership, and self-renewal or death—in the life cycle of the business ecosystem were explored to elucidate the evolving trajectories of blockchain-based health care implementation. Focused impacts on the traditional health care industry are highlighted within each stage to further support the potential health care paradigm shift in the future. Conclusions This paper enriches the existing body of literature in this field by illustrating the potential of blockchain in fulfilling stakeholders’ needs and elucidating the phenomenon of coevolution within the health care ecosystem. Blockchain not only catalyzes the interactions among players but also facilitates the formation of the ecosystem life cycle. The collaborative network linked by blockchain may play a critical role on value creation, transfer, and sharing among the health care community. Future efforts may focus on empirical or case studies to validate the proposed evolution of the health care ecosystem.

Background In the home care industry, the assignment and tracking of care services are controlled by care centers that are centralized in nature and prone to inefficient information transmission. A lack of trust among the involved parties, information opaqueness, and large manual manipulation result in lower process efficiency. Objective This study aimed to explore and demonstrate the application of blockchain and smart contract technologies to innovate/renovate home care services for harvesting the desired blockchain benefits of process transparency, traceability, and interoperability. Methods An object-oriented analysis/design combined with a unified modeling language tool was used to construct the architecture of the proposed home care service system. System feasibility was evaluated via an implementation test, and a questionnaire survey was performed to collect opinions from home care service respondents knowledgeable about blockchain and smart contracts. Results According to the comparative analysis results, the proposed design outperformed the existing system in terms of traceability, system efficiency, and process automation. Moreover, for the questionnaire survey, the quantitative analysis results showed that the proposed blockchain-based system had significantly (P<.001) higher mean scores (when compared with the existing system) in terms of important factors, including timeliness, workflow efficiency, automatic notifications, insurance functionality, and auditable traceability. In summary, blockchain-based home care service participants will be able to enjoy improved efficiency, better transparency, and higher levels of process automation. Conclusions Blockchain and smart contracts can provide valuable benefits to the home care service industry via distributed data management and process automation. The proposed system enhances user experiences by mitigating human intervention and improving service interoperability, transparency/traceability, and real-time response to home care service events. Efforts in exploring and integrating blockchain-based home care services with emerging technologies, such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence, are expected to provide further benefits and therefore are subject to future research.

BACKGROUND Blockchain technology is leveraging its innovative potentials in various sections and the transformation of how business-related processes has drawn wide attention. Topics of research interest have been focused on medical and healthcare applications while research implications are generally concluded in system design, literature review and case studies. However, a general overview and impact on healthcare ecosystem is limited. OBJECTIVE This paper explores potential paradigm shift and ecosystem evolution in healthcare utilizing blockchain technology. METHODS A literature review with case study on pioneering initiative was conducted. With a systematic lifecycle analysis, this study sheds light on evolutionary development of blockchain in healthcare scenarios and interactive relationship among stakeholders. RESULTS Four stages, birth, expansion, leadership, and self-renewal or death, in the life cycle of the ecosystem were explored to elucidate evolving trajectories on blockchain-based healthcare implementation. Focused impacts on traditional healthcare industry are highlighted in each stage to further conclude potential healthcare paradigm shift in the future. CONCLUSIONS This paper contributes to the understanding of blockchain innovation in healthcare ecosystem. The collaborative network linked by blockchain may play critical roles on value creation, transfer, and sharing among healthcare community. Future efforts may focus on empirical or case studies to validate proposed evolution of healthcare ecosystem. CLINICALTRIAL

BACKGROUND In the home care industry, the assignment and tracking of care services are controlled by care centers that are centralized in nature and prone to inefficient information transmission. A lack of trust among the involved parties, information opaqueness, and large manual manipulation result in lower process efficiency. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to explore and demonstrate the application of blockchain and smart contract technologies to innovate/renovate home care services for harvesting the desired blockchain benefits of process transparency, traceability, and interoperability. METHODS An object-oriented analysis/design combined with a unified modeling language tool was used to construct the architecture of the proposed home care service system. System feasibility was evaluated via an implementation test, and a questionnaire survey was performed to collect opinions from home care service respondents knowledgeable about blockchain and smart contracts. RESULTS According to the comparative analysis results, the proposed design outperformed the existing system in terms of traceability, system efficiency, and process automation. Moreover, for the questionnaire survey, the quantitative analysis results showed that the proposed blockchain-based system had significantly (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) higher mean scores (when compared with the existing system) in terms of important factors, including timeliness, workflow efficiency, automatic notifications, insurance functionality, and auditable traceability. In summary, blockchain-based home care service participants will be able to enjoy improved efficiency, better transparency, and higher levels of process automation. CONCLUSIONS Blockchain and smart contracts can provide valuable benefits to the home care service industry via distributed data management and process automation. The proposed system enhances user experiences by mitigating human intervention and improving service interoperability, transparency/traceability, and real-time response to home care service events. Efforts in exploring and integrating blockchain-based home care services with emerging technologies, such as the internet of things and artificial intelligence, are expected to provide further benefits and therefore are subject to future research.