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 | ImmutabilityTransparencyEnforceable agreementsDecentralization |
The supplementary material for this article is available at: https://www.explorationpub.com/uploads/Article/file/101114_sup_1.pdf.
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.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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The datasets that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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.
© The Author(s) 2024.