Blockchain for healthcare data management: opportunities, challenges, and future recommendations

Today's healthcare data management systems are facing key challenges in terms of data transparency, traceability, immutability, audit, data provenance, flexible access, trust, privacy, and security. Also, a large portion of existing healthcare systems leveraged for managing data are centralized that pose potential risks of single point of failures in case of natural disasters. Blockchain is an emerging and disruptive decentralized technology that has the potential to significantly revolutionize, reshape, and transform the way data are being handled in healthcare industries. In this paper, we discuss how leveraging blockchain for healthcare data management systems can lead to stimulate innovations and bring major improvements. We present the key blockchain features and characteristics. We discuss the premier advantages of adopting blockchain technology along with opportunities for healthcare industries. We present recent on-going projects and case studies to show the practicality of blockchain technology for various healthcare applications. We identify and discuss important open research challenges hindering the successful adoption of blockchain in the healthcare sector. Finally, we outline several future research directions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic €32.70 /Month

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (France)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Rent this article via DeepDyve

Similar content being viewed by others

Applications of Blockchain: A Healthcare Use Case

Chapter © 2024

Blockchain Technology Enables Healthcare Data Management and Accessibility

Chapter © 2022

Moving Towards Blockchain-Based Methods for Revitalizing Healthcare Domain

Chapter © 2023

Explore related subjects

References

  1. Ray PP, Dash D, Salah K, Kumar N (2020) Blockchain for IoT-based healthcare: background, consensus, platforms, and use cases. IEEE Syst J 1–10 (in press). https://doi.org/10.1109/JSYST.2020.2963840
  2. Griggs KN, Ossipova O, Kohlios CP, Baccarini AN, Howson EA, Hayajneh T (2018) Healthcare blockchain system using smart contracts for secure automated remote patient monitoring. J Med Syst 42(7):130 Google Scholar
  3. Tao H, Bhuiyan MZA, Abdalla AN, Hassan MM, Zain JM, Hayajneh T (2018) Secured data collection with hardware-based ciphers for Iot-based healthcare. IEEE Intern Things J 6(1):410–420 Google Scholar
  4. Aazam M, Zeadally S, Harras KA (2020) Health fog for smart healthcare. IEEE Consum Electron Maga 9(2):96–102 Google Scholar
  5. Ali F, El-Sappagh S, Islam SR, Kwak D, Ali A, Imran M, Kwak K-S (2020) A smart healthcare monitoring system for heart disease prediction based on ensemble deep learning and feature fusion. Inf Fusion 63:208–222 Google Scholar
  6. Awais M, Raza M, Ali K, Ali Z, Irfan M, Chughtai O, Khan I, Kim S, Ur Rehman M (2019) An internet of things based bed-egress alerting paradigm using wearable sensors in elderly care environment. Sensors 19(11):2498 Google Scholar
  7. Zhu H, Wu CK, Koo CH, Tsang YT, Liu Y, Chi HR, Tsang K-F (2019) Smart healthcare in the era of internet-of-things. IEEE Consum Electron Maga 8(5):26–30 Google Scholar
  8. Jiang L, Chen L, Giannetsos T, Luo B, Liang K, Han J (2019) Toward practical privacy-preserving processing over encrypted data in iot: An assistive healthcare use case. IEEE Intern Things J 6(6):10177–10190 Google Scholar
  9. Ali F, El-Sappagh S, Islam SR, Ali A, Attique M, Imran M, Kwak KS (2021) An intelligent healthcare monitoring framework using wearable sensors and social networking data. Futur Gener Comput Syst 114:23–43 Google Scholar
  10. Islam SR, Kwak D, Kabir MH, Hossain M, Kwak K-S (2015) The internet of things for health care: a comprehensive survey. IEEE Access 3:678–708 Google Scholar
  11. Alam MGR, Abedin SF, Moon SI, Talukder A, Hong CS (2019) Healthcare iot-based affective state mining using a deep convolutional neural network. IEEE Access 7:75189–75202 Google Scholar
  12. Shahnaz A, Qamar U, Khalid A (2019) Using blockchain for electronic health records. IEEE Access 7:147782–147795 Google Scholar
  13. Sengupta J, Ruj S, Bit SD (2020) A comprehensive survey on attacks, security issues and blockchain solutions for iot and iiot. J Netw Comput Appl 149:102481 Google Scholar
  14. Yue X, Wang H, Jin D, Li M, Jiang W (2016) Healthcare data gateways: found healthcare intelligence on blockchain with novel privacy risk control. J Med Syst 40(10):218 Google Scholar
  15. Chen L, Lee W-K, Chang C-C, Choo K-KR, Zhang N (2019) Blockchain based searchable encryption for electronic health record sharing. Futur Gener Comput Syst 95:420–429 Google Scholar
  16. McGhin T, Choo K-KR, Liu CZ, He D (2019) Blockchain in healthcare applications: research challenges and opportunities. J Netw Comput Appl 135:62–75 Google Scholar
  17. Gordon WJ, Catalini C (2018) Blockchain technology for healthcare: facilitating the transition to patient-driven interoperability. Comput Struct Biotechnol J 16:224–230 Google Scholar
  18. Farouk A, Alahmadi A, Ghose S, Mashatan A (2020) Blockchain platform for industrial healthcare: vision and future opportunities. Comput Commun 154:223–235 Google Scholar
  19. The global blockchain in healthcare report: the 2020 ultimate guide for every executive. https://healthcareweekly.com/blockchain-in-healthcare-guide/. Accessed 22 May 2020
  20. Islam N, Faheem Y, Din IU, Talha M, Guizani M, Khalil M (2019) A blockchain-based fog computing framework for activity recognition as an application to e-healthcare services. Futur Gener Comput Syst 100:569–578 Google Scholar
  21. Chukwu E, Garg L (2020) A systematic review of blockchain in healthcare: frameworks, prototypes, and implementations. IEEE Access 8:21196–21214 Google Scholar
  22. Syed TA, Alzahrani A, Jan S, Siddiqui MS, Nadeem A, Alghamdi T (2019) A comparative analysis of blockchain architecture and its applications: problems and recommendations. IEEE Access 7:176838–176869 Google Scholar
  23. Esposito C, De Santis A, Tortora G, Chang H, Choo K-KR (2018) Blockchain: a panacea for healthcare cloud-based data security and privacy? IEEE Cloud Comput 5(1):31–37 Google Scholar
  24. A. Al Omar, M. Z. A. Bhuiyan, A. Basu, S. Kiyomoto, and M. S. Rahman, “Privacy-friendly platform for healthcare data in cloud based on blockchain environment,” Futur Gener Comput Syst, vol. 95, pp. 511–521, 2019.
  25. Christidis K, Devetsikiotis M (2016) Blockchains and smart contracts for the internet of things. IEEE Access 4:2292–2303 Google Scholar
  26. Hasselgren A, Kralevska K, Gligoroski D, Pedersen SA, Faxvaag A (2020) Blockchain in healthcare and health sciences—a scoping review. Int J Med Inform 134:104040 Google Scholar
  27. Xie J, Tang H, Huang T, Yu FR, Xie R, Liu J, Liu Y (2019) A survey of blockchain technology applied to smart cities: research issues and challenges. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 21(3):2794–2830 Google Scholar
  28. Zheng Z, Xie S, Dai H-N, Chen W, Chen X, Weng J, Imran M (2020) An overview on smart contracts: challenges, advances and platforms. Futur Gener Comput Syst 105:475–491 Google Scholar
  29. Gupta S, Malhotra V, Singh SN (2020) Securing iot-driven remote healthcare data through blockchain. In: Advances in data and information sciences. Lecture notes in networks and systems, vol 94. Springer, Singapore, pp 47–56
  30. Salah K, Rehman MHU, Nizamuddin N, Al-Fuqaha A (2019) Blockchain for AI: review and open research challenges. IEEE Access 7:10127–10149 Google Scholar
  31. Ali MS, Vecchio M, Pincheira M, Dolui K, Antonelli F, Rehmani MH (2018) Applications of blockchains in the internet of things: a comprehensive survey. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 21(2):1676–1717 Google Scholar
  32. De Aguiar EJ, Faiçal BS, Krishnamachari B, Ueyama J (2020) A survey of blockchain-based strategies for healthcare. ACM Comput Surv (CSUR) 53(2):1–27 Google Scholar
  33. Houtan B, Hafid AS, Makrakis D (2020) A survey on blockchain-based self-sovereign patient identity in healthcare. IEEE Access 8:90478–90494 Google Scholar
  34. Zhang P, Schmidt DC, White J, Lenz G (2018) Blockchain technology use cases in healthcare. Adv Comput 111:1–41 Google Scholar
  35. Khezr S, Moniruzzaman M, Yassine A, Benlamri R (2019) Blockchain technology in healthcare: a comprehensive review and directions for future research. Appl Sci 9(9):1736 Google Scholar
  36. Hussien HM, Yasin SM, Udzir SNI, Zaidan AA, Zaidan BB (2019) A systematic review for enabling of develop a blockchain technology in healthcare application: taxonomy, substantially analysis, motivations, challenges, recommendations and future direction. J Med Syst 43(10):320 Google Scholar
  37. Radanović I, Likić R (2018) Opportunities for use of blockchain technology in medicine. Appl Health Econ Health Policy 16(5):583–590 Google Scholar
  38. Agbo CC, Mahmoud QH, Eklund JM (2019) Blockchain technology in healthcare: a systematic review. Healthcare 7(2):56 Google Scholar
  39. Exploring decentralization: blockchain technology and complex coordination. https://jods.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/7vxemtm3/release/2. Accessed 1 Jun 2020
  40. What if blockchain technology in healthcare: a systematic review offered a way to reconcile privacy with transparency? https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2018/624254/EPRSATA(2018)624254EN.pdf. Accessed 1 Jun 2020
  41. What are the top 10 benefits of implementing blockchain? https://dragonchain.com/blog/top-blockchain-benefits/. Accessed 1 Jun 2020
  42. Blockchain: the benefits of an immutable ledger. https://medium.com/luxtag-live-tokenized-assets-on-blockchain/blockchain-the-benefits-of-an-immutable-ledger-3ecb458fed3b. Accessed 1 Jun 2020
  43. Sigwart M, Borkowski M, Peise M, Schulte S, Tai S (2019) Blockchain-based data provenance for the internet of things. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on the internet of things, Bilbao, Spain, pp. 1–8
  44. Blockchain and healthcare: use cases today and opportunities for the future. https://mlsdev.com/blog/blockchain-and-healthcare-use-cases-today-and-in-the-future. Accessed 10 May 2020
  45. Wang S, Wang J, Wang X, Qiu T, Yuan Y, Ouyang L, Guo Y, Wang F-Y (2018) Blockchain-powered parallel healthcare systems based on the ACP approach. IEEE Trans Comput Soc Syst 5(4):942–950 Google Scholar
  46. Reisman M (2017) EHRs: the challenge of making electronic data usable and interoperable. Pharm Ther 42(9):572 Google Scholar
  47. Khan WA, Khattak AM, Hussain M, Amin MB, Afzal M, Nugent C, Lee S (2014) An adaptive semantic based mediation system for data interoperability among health information systems. J Med Syst 38(8):28 Google Scholar
  48. Dagher GG, Mohler J, Milojkovic M, Marella PB (2018) Ancile: privacy-preserving framework for access control and interoperability of electronic health records using blockchain technology. Sustain Cities Soc 39:283–297 Google Scholar
  49. Khan FA, Asif M, Ahmad A, Alharbi M, Aljuaid H (2020) Blockchain technology, improvement suggestions, security challenges on smart grid and its application in healthcare for sustainable development. Sustain Cities Soc 55:102018 Google Scholar
  50. Vazirani AA, O’Donoghue O, Brindley D, Meinert E (2020) Blockchain vehicles for efficient medical record management. NPJ Digit Med 3(1):1–5 Google Scholar
  51. Kassab MH, DeFranco J, Malas T, Laplante P, Neto VVG et al (2019) Exploring research in blockchain for healthcare and a roadmap for the future. IEEE Trans Emerg Top Comput . https://doi.org/10.1109/TETC.2019.2936881 (in press) ArticleGoogle Scholar
  52. Kumar T, Ramani V, Ahmad I, Braeken A, Harjula E, Ylianttila M (2018) Blockchain utilization in healthcare: key requirements and challenges. In: 20th international conference on e-health networking, applications and services (Healthcom). IEEE, Ostrava, Czech Republic, pp 1–7
  53. Xia Q, Sifah EB, Asamoah KO, Gao J, Du X, Guizani M (2017) Medshare: Trust-less medical data sharing among cloud service providers via blockchain. IEEE Access 5:14757–14767 Google Scholar
  54. Tendulkar S, Rodrigues A, Patel K, Dalvi H (2020) System to fight counterfeit drugs. In: Advanced computing technologies and applications. Algorithms for intelligent systems. Springer, Singapore, pp 465–470
  55. Pandey P, Litoriya R (2020) Securing e-health networks from counterfeit medicine penetration using blockchain. Wirel Personal Commun. 1–19 (in press). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-020-07041-7
  56. Blockchain: tech for healthcare. https://www.avocadoblock.com/en/blog/2019/3/29/uu7nkiya061ipblg4o22cd7lhjvhav. Accessed 5 May 2020
  57. Sahoo M, Singhar SS, Sahoo SS (2020) A blockchain based model to eliminate drug counterfeiting. In: Machine learning and information processing. Springer, pp 213–222
  58. Kumar R, Tripathi R (2019) Traceability of counterfeit medicine supply chain through blockchain. In: 11th international conference on communication systems and networks (COMSNETS). IEEE, Bengaluru, India, 568–570
  59. Blockchain and healthcare—drug traceability and data management. https://medium.com/@juraprotocol/blockchain-healthcare-drug-traceability-data-management-traceability-259dd7c79c24. Accessed 10 May 2020
  60. Tanwar S, Parekh K, Evans R (2020) Blockchain-based electronic healthcare record system for healthcare 4.0 applications. J Inf Secur Appl 50:102407 Google Scholar
  61. Pandey P, Litoriya R (2020) Implementing healthcare services on a large scale: challenges and remedies based on blockchain technology. Health Policy Technol 9:69–78 Google Scholar
  62. Omar I, Jayaraman R, Salah K, Simsekler M (2019) Exploiting ethereum smart contracts for clinical trial management. In: 2019 ACS 16th international conference on computer systems and applications (AICCSA). IEEE, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, pp 1–6
  63. Blockchain can be the catalyst for a revolution in precision medicine. https://medium.com/projectshivom/blockchain-can-be-the-catalyst-for-a-revolution-in-precision-medicine-d55e1e810262. Accessed 10 May 2020
  64. Blockchain for healthcare data security. https://www.identitymanagementinstitute.org/blockchain-for-healthcare-data-security/. Accessed 10 May 2020
  65. Benefits of blockchain technology in telemedicine. https://irishtechnews.ie/benefits-of-blockchain-technology-in-telemedicine/. Accessed 10 May 2020
  66. The future of blockchain in health insurance. https://www.the-digital-insurer.com/future-blockchain-health-insurance/. Accessed 10 May 2020
  67. How blockchain will affect medical billing and coding. https://www.mdtechreview.com/news/how-will-blockchain-affect-medical-billing-and-coding–nwid-264.html. Accessed 10 May 2020
  68. Healthcare. https://e-estonia.com/solutions/healthcare/e-health-record/. Accessed 20 May 2020
  69. Blockchain and healthcare: the estonian experience. https://nortal.com/blog/blockchain-healthcare-estonia/. Accessed 20 May 2020
  70. Learning from the estonian e-health system. https://www.healtheuropa.eu/estonian-e-health-system/89750/. Accessed 20 May 2020
  71. UAE launches blockchain for healthcare and pharma data. https://www.ledgerinsights.com/blockchain-healthcare-pharma-uae/. Accessed 20 May 2020
  72. UAE launches health data storage blockchain. https://healthmanagement.org/c/it/news/uae-launches-health-data-storage-blockchain. Accessed 20 May 2020
  73. Swiss hospitals track medical products by blockchain. https://fintechnews.ch/blockchainbitcoin/swiss-hospitals-track-medical-products-by-blockchain/32699/. Accessed 20 May 2020
  74. Case study: forging the path to consumer-directed health through blockchain technology. https://patientory.com/blog/2019/05/20/case-study-forging-the-path-to-consumer-directed-health-through-blockchain-technology/. Accessed 31 May 2020
  75. Mazlan AA, Daud SM, Sam SM, Abas H, Rasid SZA, Yusof MF (2020) Scalability challenges in healthcare blockchain system—a systematic review. IEEE Access 8:23663–23673 Google Scholar
  76. Blockchain scalability solutions [an overview]. https://hackernoon.com/blockchain-scalability-solutions-an-overview-qug032ud. Accessed 27 May 2020
  77. Remaining challenges of blockchain adoption and possible solutions. https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/18496/remaining-challenges-of-blockchain-adoption-and-possible-solutions. Accessed 27 May 2020
  78. strategies to successfully implement blockchain. https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2018/nov/how-to-implement-blockchain-201820113.html. Accessed 22 May 2020
  79. blockchain challenges to be solved before large-scale deployment. https://medium.com/dataseries/7-blockchain-challenges-to-be-solved-before-large-scale-deployment-3e45b47eee6. Accessed 27 May 2020
  80. All you need to know about tokenization, its benefits, challenges and future outlook. https://e27.co/academy-tokenization-benefits-challenges-future-outlook-20181109/. Accessed 28 May 2020
  81. Prerequisites for incorporating blockchain into a registry. https://www.newamerica.org/future-property-rights/blog/prerequisites-incorporating-blockchain-registry/. Accessed 21 May 2020
  82. Blockchain and driving the culture of adoption. https://www.epigentechnology.com/blockchain-and-driving-the-culture-of-adoption/. Accessed 21 May 2020

Acknowledgements

This publication is based upon work supported by the Khalifa University of Science and Technology under Award No. CIRA-2019-001.