A Review on Blockchain for the Internet of Medical Things: Definitions, Challenges, Applications, and Vision

Gioele Bigini, Valerio Freschi and Emanuele Lattanzi
Additional contact information
Gioele Bigini: Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino, Piazza della Repubblica 13, 61029 Urbino, Italy
Valerio Freschi: Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino, Piazza della Repubblica 13, 61029 Urbino, Italy
Emanuele Lattanzi: Department of Pure and Applied Sciences, University of Urbino, Piazza della Repubblica 13, 61029 Urbino, Italy

Future Internet, 2020, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: Nowadays, there are a lot of new mobile devices that have the potential to assist healthcare professionals when working and help to increase the well-being of the people. These devices comprise the Internet of Medical Things, but it is generally difficult for healthcare institutions to meet compliance of their systems with new medical solutions efficiently. A technology that promises the sharing of data in a trust-less scenario is the Distributed Ledger Technology through its properties of decentralization, immutability, and transparency. The Blockchain and the Internet of Medical Things can be considered as at an early stage, and the implementations successfully applying the technology are not so many. Some aspects covered by these implementations are data sharing, interoperability of systems, security of devices, the opportunity of data monetization and data ownership that will be the focus of this review. This work aims at giving an overview of the current state-of-the-art of the Blockchain-based systems for the Internet of Medical Things, specifically addressing the challenges of reaching user-centricity for these combined systems, and thus highlighting the potential future directions to follow for full ownership of data by users.

Keywords: DLT; blockchain; IPFS; internet of medical things; user-centric systems; consensus (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/12/208/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/12/12/208/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jftint:v:12:y:2020:i:12:p:208-:d:451177

Access Statistics for this article

Future Internet is currently edited by Ms. Grace You

More articles in Future Internet from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().