NFTs in Healthcare: Vision, Opportunities, and Challenges
Ahmad Musamih, Khaled Salah, Raja Jayaraman, Ibrar Yaqoob, Deepak Puthal, Samer Ellahham
Abstract
Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) have emerged as one of the most popular digital assets in recent years. They represent ownership of unique items that are stored on a blockchain and cannot be changed, replaced, or copied. Digital exchanges sell and trade NFT-minted assets that can only have one official owner at a time. NFTs are entering all sectors, from art to real estate, and healthcare is the next sector. In this article, we envision using NFTs in healthcare. We present the main components along with key features of NFTs and their benefits. We discuss the potential opportunities brought about by NFTs in different healthcare areas, such as supply chain management, patient-centric data management, digital twins, clinical trial management, and genomics. We discuss some important challenges hindering the adoption of NFTs in healthcare, serving as future research directions.