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. 2021 May 28;21(11):3753.
doi: 10.3390/s21113753.

A Scoping Review of Integrated Blockchain-Cloud (BcC) Architecture for Healthcare: Applications, Challenges and Solutions

Leila Ismail  1   2 , Huned Materwala  1   2 , Alain Hennebelle  3
Affiliations

A Scoping Review of Integrated Blockchain-Cloud (BcC) Architecture for Healthcare: Applications, Challenges and Solutions

Leila Ismail et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Blockchain is a disruptive technology for shaping the next era of a healthcare system striving for efficient and effective patient care. This is thanks to its peer-to-peer, secure, and transparent characteristics. On the other hand, cloud computing made its way into the healthcare system thanks to its elasticity and cost-efficiency nature. However, cloud-based systems fail to provide a secured and private patient-centric cohesive view to multiple healthcare stakeholders. In this situation, blockchain provides solutions to address security and privacy concerns of the cloud because of its decentralization feature combined with data security and privacy, while cloud provides solutions to the blockchain scalability and efficiency challenges. Therefore a novel paradigm of blockchain-cloud integration (BcC) emerges for the domain of healthcare. In this paper, we provide an in-depth analysis of the BcC integration for the healthcare system to give the readers the motivations behind the emergence of this new paradigm, introduce a classification of existing architectures and their applications for better healthcare. We then review the development platforms and services and highlight the research challenges for the integrated BcC architecture, possible solutions, and future research directions. The results of this paper will be useful for the healthcare industry to design and develop a data management system for better patient care.

Keywords: blockchain; cloud computing; electronic health records; health data analytics; healthcare system; privacy; security.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Evolution of healthcare system toward integrated BcC.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overview of a cloud system architecture.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Processing of a transaction in blockchain.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Encapsulated BcC architecture for healthcare.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Non-encapsulated BcC architecture for healthcare.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Integrated BcC opportunities in healthcare.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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