Many sectors, including finance, government, energy, health, and others, have found interest in blockchain technology over the last decade. It's no exaggeration to state that blockchain is pervasive in the healthcare industry. According to industry insiders, its application in healthcare has yet to achieve its full potential, but the implications might be substantial as it matures. This chapter presents the ongoing research trends, the existing issues and challenges, and presents future research opportunities to understand blockchain better. This chapter also throws light on the concepts of blockchain. This chapter also presents some examples of the uses of blockchain in healthcare. The authors hope that this chapter provides insight to the readers on the present and future research opportunities of blockchain in healthcare.
TopIntroduction
Blockchain technology is ready to alter global healthcare quickly. The technology is predicted to have an annual compound rate of increase of 70 percent in healthcare over the next few years, due to increasing data breaches in the industry, according to a recent TechSci Research report (New Age TechSci Research Pvt Ltd, 2020).
For several reasons, Blockchain is essential to healthcare (IEEE, 2021):
- 1.
Firstly, it enables the secure sharing of sensitive information without copying it and can eliminate healthcare records errors. The data is also timestamped, giving it more security. Blockchain is capable of securely streamlining health care payments. This eliminates the need to rely on costly equipment while cutting overhead costs dramatically.
- 2.
Second, blockchain enables the worldwide sharing of research data between health professionals and researchers, providing them the opportunity to work together to resolve complicated medical problems and diseases.
- 3.
Third, blockchain provides the capability for cryptocurrency research for scientists and health organizations. Regulations will be required to ensure fair trade worldwide, but this can contribute to access for all to healthcare.
- 4.
Finally, blockchain will offer collaboration tools for individual health organizations, eliminating global health disparities during the fight against diseases.
This chapter examines how blockchain can transform our present infrastructure of healthcare. The industry includes several players (providers, patient payers, suppliers, research institutes, manufacturers, etc.) with varied roles and requirements. This chapter seeks to better understanding blockchain’s scope and present future research guidelines for all healthcare players.
TopBasic Concepts Of Blockchain
We examine in this section the key characteristics of blockchain technology to help comprehend the rest of the chapter.
Blockchain’s Overview and Architecture
Blockchain is mainly an internet-level peer-to-peer network (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017), launched in 2008 as part of a Bitcoin proposal (Nakamoto, 2008). The blockchain is a public leader consisting of a succession of blocks containing a complete history of transaction records in the network. A blockchain is a public ledger consisting of a chain of blocks in which all the transaction records are permanently stored. One block essentially consists of a body and a header. Every block’s header contains the hash of the previous block. Thus, a linked list is created, where the last element is based on the block structure of the current element. A timestamp also exists in a block header that specifies when the block was created and a nonce that is typically set to an arbitrary value (which the miner would subsequently change to a specific Hash value). This nonce prevents double-spending by solving a mathematical puzzle.
Blockchain transactions are small units of work that have publicly specified characteristics. A majority of system participants agree that each transaction will be checked. This ensures that transactions are manipulated when packaged in the blockchain. All participants reproduce, host, and maintain the same ledger copy (Iansiti & Lakhani, 2017). Business logic can be encoded using intelligent contracts, a self-executing code for blockchain processing regardless of the blockchain type. Included in a blockchain, smart contracts are permanently resistant to manipulation, as nobody can modify what has been programmed, automatically verify itself and apply itself when the rules are fulfilled at any point. In the broadest sense, among the many key characteristics of blockchain, one may identify decentralization, immutability, the ability to reach all participants, censorship resistance, the availability of blockchain copies, and anonymity.