A survey of blockchain-based IoT eHealthcare : applications, research issues, and challenges

Blockchain (BC) technology has recently emerged as an essential component for different applications, including healthcare and IoT, because of its decentralized ledger, source provenance, and tamper-proof nature. The Internet of Things (IoT) and BC have enabled health systems to expand their scalability and maintain consistency on a decentralized platform. As a result, many researchers have developed BC-enabled IoT eHealth systems and explored the application of BC technology in diverse fields of eHealthcare. This paper conducts a comprehensive survey on the emerging applications of BC technology in healthcare. We summarize applications, research issues, security threats, research challenges, opportunities, and the future scope of BC technologies in the IoT-enabled healthcare system when BC is adopted to handle the privacy and storage of current and future medical records. Furthermore, we analyze the state-of-the-art BC works in the medical area, assessing their benefits-drawbacks, and guiding future researchers to overcome the limitations of the existing articles. © 2022 Elsevier B.V