Healthcare Record Management for Healthcare 4.0 via Blockchain: A Review of Current Applications, Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Potential
Shalom Akhai
Abstract
The healthcare industry has been transformed by the digital revolution, bringing about the age of healthcare 4.0 (HC 4.0), which pledges to enhance patient outcomes and optimize care delivery efficiency. The emergence of blockchain technology (BcT) holds great potential in revolutionizing the management of medical records, which is a vital aspect of this paradigm shift. The blockchain offers a secure, decentralized, and encrypt framework for the storing and management of health data. By allowing the safe transmission of health data between patients, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders, blockchain facilitates improved care delivery cooperation and coordination. In this chapter, the impact of BcT on healthcare delivery and its potential to revolutionize health record management in the era of HC 4.0 are reviewed. The chapter presents a thorough study of the utilization of BcT in the management of health records. It outlines the potential advantages, challenges, and constraints associated with the utilization of blockchain in healthcare record keeping. This chapter examines healthcare use cases for BcT, including patient-centered health data management, clinical trials, and supply chain management. The chapter also analyzes the legal and ethical considerations related to the application of BcT in healthcare, like safeguarding data privacy, ensuring security, and determining ownership. The chapter concludes by examining potential obstacles to blockchain application in healthcare and highlighting future research directions in this area. This chapter presents an overview of the breakthroughs in health record management brought to HC 4.0 by BcT, with an emphasis on its prospect to change healthcare facilities’ dissemination and enhance patient evaluation.