Towards the Uses of Blockchain in Mobile Health Services and Applications: A Survey
It addresses security and decentralization challenges in mobile health for healthcare providers and patients, but is incremental as it reviews existing practices and proposes ideas without new empirical results.
This paper surveys the application of blockchain technology in mobile health services, highlighting its potential to secure electronic health records, empower patients, and enable decentralized healthcare, while proposing conceptual solutions for future implementations.
With the advent of Bitcoin and blockchain, the growth and adaptation of cryptographic features and capabilities were quickly extended to new and underexplored areas, such as healthcare. Currently, blockchain is being implemented mainly as a mechanism to secure Electronic Health Records (EHRs). However, new studies have shown that this technology can be a powerful tool in empowering patients to control their own health data, as well for enabling a fool-proof health data history and establishing medical responsibility. With the advent of mobile health (m-Health) sustained on service-oriented architectures, the adaptation of blockchain mechanisms into m-Health applications creates the possibility for a more decentralized and available healthcare service. Hence, this paper presents a review of the current security best practices for m-Health including blockchain technologies in healthcare. Moreover, it discusses and elaborates on identified open-issues and potentialities regarding the uses of Blockchain. Finally, the paper proposes conceptual solutions for future blockchain implementations for m-Health Services and Applications.