Blockchain in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Survey of Implementations and a Secure Model Proposal

Abstract

Blockchain's core attributes, including decentralization, transparency, and immutability, have positioned it as a pioneering technology in the realm of financial technology (fintech) and have rendered it highly applicable across diverse industries. The current enterprise ecosystem has faced setbacks primarily due to a lack of trust in the existing infrastructure. This issue can be traced back to the centralized management of healthcare data, making it vulnerable to tampering and fraudulent activities, resulting in financial losses. The existing enterprise ecosystem failed due to the lack of trust in the currently in-place infrastructure. This problem can be attributed to the centralized healthcare data management, which is prone to tampering and fraudulent activities leading to capital loss. The present study relates to a comprehensive survey conducted in timespan from 2018 to 2022 on the implementation of blockchain technology in the healthcare industry, identifying and discussing the key challenges facing the healthcare industry, such as fraud, and scams against healthcare data. It is found that there is an enormous inclination towards the decentralization of patient-centric data. However, a rapid decline is reported due to the privacy and security concerns of the confidential and sensitive data. Moreover, it is noticed that most of the implementations utilized either Ethereum or Hyperledger. Based on the survey's findings, the study proposed a blockchain-based healthcare framework that can address the identified challenges by providing a secure and transparent platform for collecting, storing, and sharing patient health data while prioritizing security and privacy.