Systematic Mapping Study: Blockchain Applied to Healthcare

This study presents a systematic mapping of Blockchain technology in healthcare, aiming to provide an overview of the field and identify areas for future research. The research focuses on blockchain’s characteristics, problems, platforms, and challenges in healthcare applications. An extensive search in the Scopus database resulted in 35 selected publications, which were analyzed to extract data. Findings highlight blockchain’s transformative potential in healthcare, characterized by decentralized architecture, data security, and interoperability. The extracted data includes platforms and technologies used for architecture, engineering, and development of blockchain applications. Key challenges identified are scalability, interoperability, privacy concerns, and regulatory compliance. The study underscores blockchain’s promise to improve healthcare data storage, sharing, and management but also emphasizes the need to address technical and regulatory challenges. It suggests a collaborative approach involving diverse stakeholders to optimize blockchain’s healthcare implementation. The research is limited by its technical focus, potentially overlooking broader challenges in policy and regulations.