Possible usages of smart contracts (blockchain) in healthcare and why no one is using them

Abstract

Security, privacy, transparency, consent, and data sharing are major challenges that healthcare institutions must address today. The explosion of the Internet of Things (IoT), the enactment of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the growing trend of patients self-managing their diseases, and the eagerness of patients to share their self-collected health data with primary and secondary health organisations further increase the complexity of these challenges. Smart contracts, based on blockchain technology, can be a legitimate approach for addressing these challenges. Smart contracts define rules and penalties in an agreement, enforce those rules, and render them irrevocable. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review (as of May 2018) of the possible usages of smart contracts in healthcare and focuses on data sharing between patients, doctors, and institutions.