The taxonomy of blockchain applications in healthcare
Category
Description
Blockchain properties supporting the applications
Healthcare data management
Management, storage, and sharing of electronic health records (EHRs) and electronic medical records (EMRs). Enhancing patient data control and interoperability
TransparencyImmutabilityDecentralization
Pharmaceutical supply chain and healthcare logistics
Ensuring authenticity, traceability, and safety of pharmaceutical products, organ transplants, and blood donations
TransparencyImmutability
Interoperability and consolidated healthcare systems
Creating a unified view of patient data across healthcare providers to improve care coordination and outcomes
TransparencyDecentralization
Clinical trials and medical research
Securing data collection, patient recruitment, and results sharing for clinical trials. Supporting reliability and verifiability of medical research
ImmutabilityTransparency
Remote care and Internet of Things (IoT) architectures
Real-time patient monitoring, secure data collection, and remote healthcare delivery through integration with IoT devices
Enforceable agreementsDecentralization
Health insurance and claims processing
Automating and securing health insurance claims processing via smart contracts. Reducing fraud and streamlining the claims lifecycle
Enforceable agreementsTransparency
Governance
Ensuring health data security and privacy across applications through cryptographic methods. Providing audit trails, access control, and data aggregation for governance
KL: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. ARS: Conceptualization, Writing—original draft, Writing—review & editing. VU: Conceptualization, Writing—review & editing, Supervision. All authors read and approved the submitted version.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Ethical approval
Not applicable.
Consent to participate
Not applicable.
Consent to publication
Not applicable.
Availability of data and materials
The datasets that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Funding
This work was partially funded by the following grants: the China Scholarship Council [202109650003]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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