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A Systematic Review on Blockchain in Transforming the Healthcare Sector

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Transformations Through Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Blockchain is a newer innovation that is incredibly popular nowadays. It is the major technology behind cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, etc. The decentralized public ledger allows privacy and security of data where no third party such as banks are involved. All the records stored here are immutable. Initially it was used in finance with regard to cryptocurrency. With the advent in technology, its applications in other fields such as digital voting, supply chain management, education, and commerce are also put on focus. Healthcare is the primary concern of every country for its overall development. Still there are some areas in healthcare sector which needs to be upgraded such as record tracking, early identification of diseases, reducing premature death, and more. There is huge amount of data in healthcare system which needs to be stored securely. As blockchain is decentralized, data about medical history, treatment, and facilities used can easily be accessible without being tampered by any third party on the network. There are various issues with traditional system such as loss of data, lack of accessibility fake certificates, tempering with records which can be overcome by implementing this technology. Blockchain being transparent, immutable, distributed, encrypted hash, timestamp which make it more beneficial in healthcare sector. Blockchain can entirely change the way of storing and data security, storage, payments through smart contracts. Caregivers can store and retrieve the reports and prescriptions anytime and can be updated on real time. In this paper we have done the systematic review on overview of blockchain, existing drawbacks in healthcare system, potential benefits of its implementation, application in other fields, and some challenges of blockchain.

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Correspondence to Sarvesh Tanwar or Sumit Badotra .

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Gupta, M., Tanwar, S., Badotra, S., Rana, A. (2022). A Systematic Review on Blockchain in Transforming the Healthcare Sector. In: Idrees, S.M., Nowostawski, M. (eds) Transformations Through Blockchain Technology . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93344-9_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-93344-9_8

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