Exploring Blockchain-Based Patient-Centric Healthcare: A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

Blockchain, an immutable, decentralized, and distributed ledger technology, has the potential to revolutionize the sharing and access of confidential data, particularly in the healthcare sector, where patient-centric systems benefit greatly from its robust security features and ability to ensure data integrity. Recognizing the potential, this paper reviews current research on blockchain-based healthcare architectures that focus on patient-centric solutions, exploring the present state of these architectures and highlighting the growing interest in blockchain applications for enhancing healthcare. The review identifies key trends, challenges, and opportunities within this domain, analyzing the evolution of research over recent years, the types of studies conducted, their geographical distribution, and publication channels. It delves into the prevalent use cases, primary challenges addressed, and contributions of various studies, covering common blockchain platforms, types of blockchains, and the implementation of smart contracts. Guided by four critical questions aimed at improving security and privacy, streamlining patient consent management, fostering interoperability, and ensuring compliance with healthcare data regulations, this research underscores the importance of patient data security through advanced encryption techniques, access controls, and decentralized storage solutions. It also highlights the benefits of patient-controlled data sharing, empowering individuals with greater control over their health information. Despite progress, the review identifies areas requiring further exploration, such as advanced security threats, nuanced and dynamic consent models, comprehensive interoperability solutions, and alignment with evolving healthcare regulations. Addressing these gaps necessitates research into scalable privacy-preserving blockchain architectures that prioritize dynamic consent management and interoperability standards, thus making regulatory compliance possible in an ever-changing healthcare environment.