A quantitative and qualitative review on the main research streams regarding blockchain technology in healthcare

Abstract

(1) Background: Blockchain technology has been gaining high popularity in the healthcare domain. This has brought about a spate of recent studies regarding blockchain technology in healthcare, creating high demand for quantitative or qualitative reviews on the main research streams thereof. In order to contribute to satisfying the high demand, this research presents a quantitative and qualitative review on studies regarding blockchain technology in healthcare. (2) Methods: A quantitative review was performed by searching the Web of Science database for articles published until 10 March in 2020, and a qualitative review was conducted by using the content analysis based on the integrative view of Leavitt’s diamond model. (3) Results: The quantitative review identified five research streams. The number of articles about blockchain technology in healthcare has dramatically increased since 2016, with a compound annual growth rate of 254.4%. English is the most dominant language used in the articles, and the USA and China are the top two countries of origin of the articles, representing overwhelming portions. The IEEE Access, Journal of Medical Systems, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Applied Sciences Basel, and Sensors are the top five journals in terms of publication. The articles showed an L-shaped distribution in terms of their annual average numbers of citations. The qualitative review revealed two research streams. Most of the top 10 articles ranked by their annual average numbers of citations concentrated on developing or proposing new technological solutions using blockchain technology to effectively revolutionize the current methods of managing data in the healthcare domain. The majority of the top 10 articles pursued the convergence of blockchain technology with cloud technology or IoT. (4) Conclusions: This article illuminates the main research streams about blockchain technology in healthcare through a quantitative and qualitative review, providing implications for future research on blockchain technology.