Blockchain in healthcare

Abstract

Blockchain is treated as a ledger system that manages data and their transactions using time-stamped blocks through cryptography and works in a decentralised manner over the computing network. Although blockchain is originally used as a backbone for the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, its capabilities and applications have yet to be extended far beyond cryptocurrencies. In this paper, through conducting a latest systematic literature review aiming to produce new source of evidence, we identify potential applications of the blockchain technologies in healthcare. The comprehensive review looks at the professional and academic open-sourced journals published between 2008 to 2019 to recognise the potential of blockchain based approaches in the purpose of healthcare information disseminations, as well as to segregate issues for the implementation and development of blockchain applications. We identify several major application domains that present research opportunities and challenges for the future advancements and directions for the benefits of IS researchers and professionals.