23. Blockchain for Security and Privacy of Healthcare Systems: A Protocol for Systematic Literature Review

Patient’s privacy, electronic health records’ confidentiality, integrity and all related e-health security issues are the most critical elements of a successful digital health, as they support building trust between patients and healthcare stakeholders. Blockchain technology appears to cover a wide range of these elements. However, the use of this emergent technology in healthcare domain, still has many security and privacy challenges that need to be overcome. Recently, many research works are focusing on such issues leading to a growing literature. In the perspective to review this literature in a systematic way to deeply investigate the use of blockchain technology in healthcare for security enhancement and privacy protection, this paper proposes a protocol that could be used to conduct successfully this systematic literature review (SLR). The proposed protocol follows the PRISMA-P 2015 Guidelines. At a closer look, we indicate the use of snowballing search and automated search (on eight electronic data sources) to carry out the intended SLR, identify five pertinent research questions, and specify the related inclusion/exclusion criteria. All methods for selection process, data collection and data analysis that will be used in the intended SLR are described in this protocol.