Blockchain in Health Care: Hope or Hype?

Abstract

<jats:p>There has been an increasing interest in blockchain technology from the health care sector in the last couple of years. The value proposition for using blockchain technology in the health care sector is to share sensitive patient data among health care entities securely and to empower patients. Blockchain technology allows patients to have an active role in developing and updating their own patient data. However, is blockchain technology really the silver bullet it seems to be? With this paper, we aim to understand the benefits and challenges of blockchain technology in the health care sector. We discuss innovation and security implications concerning blockchain technology in health care. Furthermore, we show that there is a need for more use cases to ensure the secure sharing of data within the health care sector. In our opinion, blockchain technology will not solve the issues encountered by the health care sector; in fact, it may raise more issues than it will solve.</jats:p>

Barriers to blockchain adoption in health-care industry: an Indian perspective

“…Thus, the presence of BC-T is virtually transforming various industries, ranging from service entities (namely, hospital, health care, tourism, event management, banking, etc.) to operations and supply chain management (Dabbagh, 2019; DCunha et al , 2019; El-Gazzar and Stendal, 2020; Joshi and Sharma, 2017). Conceptually, BC is a sequentially structured blocks that carries digital transaction records, similar to accounting ledger (Litke et al , 2019; Hira et al , 2020).…”

“…Several recent studies have identified BCB in context to different industries (Kouhizadeh et al , 2020; Lohmer and Lasch, 2020; Öztürk and Yildizbaşi, 2020). To device the operational strategies and to unleash the benefits of health-care systems to masses, in developing countries, it has become essential to explore BCBs, which influence the health services (Abu-Elezz et al , 2020; De Aguiar et al , 2020; Durneva et al , 2020; El-Gazzar and Stendal, 2020). The identified BCBs are as follows.…”

Test, Trace, and Put on the Blockchain?: A Viewpoint Evaluating the Use of Decentralized Systems for Algorithmic Contact Tracing to Combat a Global Pandemic

“…Efforts to address data integration are underway, as exemplified by emerging standards at the intersection of blockchain and pandemic and epidemic surveillance [99]. There are, however, challenges concerning the integration with existing health record management systems, such as the cost of change incurred [100], ensuring regulatory compliance of an integrated information technology environment [101], dealing with privacy and confidentiality policies specific to health information (eg, implications of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in the United States [102] and the General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union [103]), or the immaturity of proposed standards that is detrimental to achieving interoperability [104].…”

A Review of Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Blockchain Technology Applications in Medicine and Global Health

“…Given blockchain's recent development, governments may wish to investigate possible situations in which blockchain may be used in the healthcare sector and analyze the obstacles connected with the industry's traditionalism. When building and implementing blockchain solutions for healthcare necessitates a thorough evaluation of the trade-offs [5]. In this context, we want to talk about how to use the principles that underpin machine learning, big data, and blockchain technology, as well as their relevance in medicine, healthcare, and public health.…”