Blockchain-based Supply Chain Traceability for COVID-19 personal protective equipment

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted many industries, in particular the healthcare sector exposing systemic vulnerabilities in emergency preparedness, risk mitigation, and supply chain management. A major challenge during the pandemic was related to the increased demand for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), resulting in critical shortages for healthcare and frontline workers. This is due to the lack of information visibility combined with the inability to precisely track product movement within the supply chain, requiring a robust traceability solution. Blockchain technology is a distributed ledger that ensures a transparent, safe, and secure exchange of data among supply chain stakeholders. The advantages of adopting blockchain technology to manage and track PPE products in the supply chain include decentralized control, security, traceability, and auditable time-stamped transactions. In this paper, we present a blockchain-based approach using smart contracts to transform PPE supply chain operations. We propose a generic framework using Ethereum smart contracts and decentralized storage systems to automate the processes and information exchange and present detailed algorithms that capture the interactions among supply chain stakeholders. The smart contract code was developed and tested in Remix environment, and the code is made publicly available on Github. We present detailed cost and security analysis incurred by the stakeholders in the supply chain. Adopting a blockchain-based solution for PPE supply chains is economically viable and provides a streamlined, secure, trusted, and transparent mode of communication among various stakeholders.

Leveraging blockchain in response to a pandemic through disaster risk management: an IF-MCDM framework

“… BcT can be applied to address problems in the vaccine supply chain, such as vaccine traceability, vaccine expiration, and vaccine record fraud (Yong et al 2020 ; Abid et al 2022 ; Baz et al 2022 ). BcT can provide low cost systems for COVID-19 tracking (Mashamba-Thompson and Crayton 2020 ; Omar et al 2022 ; Khan et al 2022 ). A blockchain-enabled pharmaceutical cold chain can be developed to improve the pharmaceutical supply chain and logistics (Bamakan et al 2021 ).…”

“…It represents a key to success in reviving health systems in the region Singh et al ( 2020 ) IOT application has an effect on reducing health care costs and improving patient recovery Swayamsiddha and Mohanty ( 2020 ) By enabling real-time tracking, remote health monitoring, rapid case diagnosis, contact tracking, clustering, screening, and surveillance, the Cognitive Internet of Medical Things (CIoMT) platform lessens the burden on the medical sector in terms of infection management and prevention Tavakoli et al ( 2020 ) Robotic and telerobotic systems make it feasible to triage, evaluate, monitor, and treat patients from a safe distance, dramatically lowering the risk of infectious disease transmission to frontline healthcare workers Ting et al ( 2020 ) Public-health organizations can obtain data for tracking the COVID-19 epidemic thanks to a portal made available through the Internet of Things. Big data also offers prospects for modeling studies of viral activity and for directing healthcare authorities in specific nations to improve readiness for the outbreak Abid et al ( 2022 ) Providing a high level of protection of personal data, a blockchain-oriented system has been designed (Novidchain), which guarantees the user's own sovereignty while ensuring both the safety of the population and the user's right to privacy Baz et al ( 2022 ) Potential new technologies using blockchain and artificial intelligence could help support the prevention of a pandemic like COVID-19 Masood and Faridi ( 2022 ) According to the suggested architecture, only publicly viewable travel history would be saved in the blockchain, but a person's privacy will still be protected by creating various addresses with the same key Omar et al ( 2022 ) It is financially feasible to implement a blockchain-based solution for Personal Protective Equipment supply chains since it offers a streamlined, safe, dependable, and transparent method of communication for diverse stakeholders Sahal et al ( 2022 ) To battle COVID-19 and any upcoming pandemics, a blockchain-based collaborative digital twins architecture has been devised for decentralized epidemic alerting …”

“…Finally, they concluded that building a blockchain-based humanitarian network is the most significant critical factor (Choi et al 2019 ; Pagano et al 2019 ; Bryce et al 2020 ; Grima et al 2021 ; Joshi et al 2022 ). Fabri and Fabri ( 2019 ), Munawar et al ( 2022 ), Omar et al ( 2022 ), and Sahal et al ( 2022 ) stated that new research is needed to reveal how practically disruptive technologies, including BcT can be used to reduce disaster risk and improve resilience. The main aim of this study is to systematically explore the role of BcT in DRM operations as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

An Extensive Blockchain Based Applications Survey: Tools, Frameworks, Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions

“…Omar et al [199] talked about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical services inventory network activities, especially in following and overseeing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). To manage transactions and orders in a decentralized network, they introduced BC-based PPE solutions using Ethereum smart contracts to build trust.…”

Two years of COVID-19 pandemic: Understanding the role of knowledge-based supply chains towards resilience through bibliometric and network analyses

“…According to a report published in Fortune magazine, among the fortune-1000 companies, 94% reported disruption in their SC (Chowdhury et al 2021 ; Ivanov and Dolgui 2021 ). On the other hand, few supply chains like medicine, personal protective equipment (PPE), facemask, oximeter, and ventilator saw a massive rise in demand (Hu 2022 ; Omar et al 2022 ). Moreover, supply, transportation, and logistics were severely affected because of the closure of international borders, lockdown in countries, restrictions in vehicle movement, shortages of labour, and, most importantly, maintaining social distancing with others (Chowdhury et al 2021 ).…”