Blockchain Technology - Current Status and Future Research Opportunities in Various Areas of Healthcare Industry

Abstract

Purpose: Blockchain technology is one of the emerging Information Communication and Computation (ICCT) underlying technologies of the 21st century with potential applications in primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary industry sectors. In this paper, we have identified and analyzed some of the potential fields of the healthcare industry that can get benefit by means of using blockchain technology principles. Based on a systematic review on the development of blockchain technology and its application in healthcare sector to improve the quality of healthcare services, this paper identifies some of the application areas in the healthcare industry including Healthcare Security & Authentication aspects, Clinical Trials & Precision Medicine, Personalizing the Healthcare Services, Healthcare Data Management, Strengthening Public Health Surveillance, e-Healthcare to Customers, Healthcare Administration & Medicine Management, Telehealth & Telemedicine, Managing Medical Imaging, Developing Smart Healthcare System, and Healthcare Information System. The purpose also includes the analysis of the current implementation challenges of blockchain technology in healthcare industry services.

Methodology: The study is descriptive and exploratory in nature. The related information is collected from various secondary sources for review. The secondary sources include published literature from various scholarly journals searched through Google scholar by means of identified keywords.

Results/Findings: Based on a systematic review, we have identified the current status of the use of blockchain in several areas of healthcare sector, desired status called ideal status, and the research gap of use of blockchain technology in various application areas of the healthcare industry along with identification of various possible research agendas for future research.

Originality/Value: It is found that blockchain technology facilitates for the improvement of quality services in the healthcare sector and various research agendas are proposed to carry out further research for patient satisfaction and comfortability.

Type of the Paper: Review based research analysis.