The state of the art of the blockchain ethics in healthcare: A systematic literature review

Abstract

Blockchain is a software innovation which is based on a cryptographically secured, decentralised, and distributed storage of data. The technological breakthrough was done as a part of and became familiar through cryptocurrencies, where it is used to openly store currency transactions among its users. Blockchain technology has been since proposed and used in various domains ranging from open contracts to electronic voting—as well as in various purposes in eHealth, medical and well-being applications. However, its usage in these sectors possesses several ethical questions as these environments are full of personal and private patient information. To study the state-of-the-art of the blockchain ethics in healthcare, this study presents a systematic literature study (SLR) on this phenomenon. By collecting the relevant primary studies from Scopus, the results show that the utilisation of blockchain is swiftly maturing with new research and applications published constantly in this domain. However, the ethical discussion related to the use of blockchain technologies is still taking its baby steps in healthcare. Despite a few openings, ethical research is practically non-existing when compared against the full extant literature on the topic. Therefore, remarkable amount of further work is needed to cover the potential ethical questions related to the adoption and use of the technology.