Applying Blockchain in Telemedicine: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Background:Blockchain has many applications in healthcare and can improve mobile health applications, monitoring devices, electronic media record sharing and storage, clinical trial data, and insurance information storage. In this study, the aim was to investigate the application areas of blockchain and its impact in telemedicine.Methods:This study considers articles use blockchain for telemedicine. PubMed, Science direct, and Web of Science databases are considered as searchable databases. Information on authors' names, year of publication, country, application, privacy mechanism, blockchain platform, and encryption techniques are used. 249 studies were retrieved after the initial search. Finally, 16 cases had the necessary criteria to enter this study. The JBI checklist was applied to all 16 studies.Results:China with 5 studies and Italy with 3 studies are the most important countries about blockchain in telemedicine that electronic health records are more used than others. Blockchain platforms are Ethereum, Internet of thing, cloud-service provider, and GPS. Encryption techniques are Attribute-based encryption: Decentralized identity: Order-preserving encryption- hashcode- Double blockchain.Conclusions:Blockchain plays an important role in creating security for telemedicine technology. In the future, the use of technology will have a significant and important leap, which will attract the attention of many researchers.