Since blockchain was introduced through Bitcoin, research has been ongoing to extend its applications to non-financial use cases. Healthcare is one industry in which blockchain is expected to have significant impacts. Research in this area is relatively new but growing rapidly; so, health informatics researchers and practitioners are always struggling to keep pace with research progress in this area. This paper reports on a systematic review of the ongoing research in the application of blockchain technology in healthcare. The research methodology is based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines and a systematic mapping study process, in which a well-designed search protocol is used to search four scientific databases, to identify, extract and analyze all relevant publications. The review shows that a number of studies have proposed different use cases for the application of blockchain in healthcare; however, there is a lack of adequate prototype implementations and studies to characterize the effectiveness of these proposed use cases. The review further highlights the state-of-the-art in the development of blockchain applications for healthcare, their limitations and the areas for future research. To this end, therefore, there is still the need for more research to better understand, characterize and evaluate the utility of blockchain in healthcare.

Though a relatively new technology, blockchain has become a very trendy topic in recent times, thanks to bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies which are built on the blockchain. With features such as decentralized consensus and data immutability, blockchain transactions are known to be transparent, secure, and trustworthy. For these reasons, blockchain is increasingly being adopted in different industries and for diverse use cases, especially where security and trust are important concerns. Health care is one such industry that offers several use cases for applying blockchain technology. Even so, blockchain‐based healthcare applications have yet to become widespread. This is mostly because initial efforts were focused on developing blockchain frameworks for cryptocurrencies and not for general purpose applications, such as health care. Recently, general‐purpose blockchain frameworks, which may be used to develop healthcare applications, have begun to emerge. However, there is no consensus on which framework is most suitable for developing healthcare applications. In light of this, this paper compares the popular general‐purpose blockchain frameworks, vis‐a‐vis the requirements for healthcare systems, in order to guide health informatics researchers and practitioners in selecting the appropriate platform for developing and experimenting with blockchain‐based healthcare applications.