Blockchain for digital healthcare: Case studies and adoption challenges

Abstract

The healthcare industry is significantly transforming toward digital and smart healthcare. Blockchain, as an emerging distributed collaborative paradigm, offers a promising solution for ensuring trustworthiness and high availability of services in the evolving healthcare sector. This study aimed to provide a comprehensive survey of blockchain-based applications in smart healthcare. We first present the real-world blockchain use cases in smart healthcare and related fields, outlining the motivations for this study. Next, we review the cutting-edge blockchain applications in various domains, including health data sharing, public health management, drug supply chains, insurance claims, and the Internet-of-Medical-Things. A detailed analysis of several blockchain-based healthcare data sharing scenarios is also included. The findings illustrate the diverse applications of blockchain technology in enhancing healthcare systems, along with a detailed examination of the challenges related to technical implementation and adoption. We discussed the challenges encountered in blockchain integration in smart healthcare and propose potential solutions to guide future research in this area.