ABSTRACT
In the healthcare setting, electronic databases are extensively used, specifically for storing and recalling data for improved medical interventions. However, the currently employed systems in healthcare organizations, such as hospitals and laboratories, have major security issues such as data breaches, unauthorized access, and loss of personal information. Blockchain has been regarded as an effective alternative for providing a secure data sharing for healthcare and other institutions. This is due to the cryptographic features associated with the blockchain technology that can make data breaching difficult and improve data access and sharing. However, it requires a robust and secure framework for effective operations. In order to understand the needs and requirements for a blockchain-based framework for data sharing in the healthcare, an extensive overview of the literature has been carried out, and a proposal is drafted to understand the concepts behind the data sharing framework. This is performed to delineate the requirements of an effective framework for data sharing based on blockchain. This will serve as a cornerstone for the actual research, where the associated requirements would be further researched and utilized in proposing a general data sharing framework. Through a survey of the literature, it has been identified that blockchain-based data sharing can provide better security on access control. Open research issues are also discussed, along with the existing literature.
