Reviving the information veracity in healthcare supply chain with blockchain: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

Global drug handling and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic add to the current complexity in healthcare operation, potentially hindering the visibility and integrity of supply chain information. Blockchain’s potential to enhance information veracity has increasingly captured the attention of practitioners and academics. This research aims to understand how blockchain helps the healthcare supply chain maintain trustworthiness of cross-enterprise information amid uncertainty conditions. A systematic literature review was performed on eight prominent databases with blockchain and healthcare supply chain served as central topics. Following the quality assessment, open, axial, and selective coding were conducted to identify blockchain potentials. Next, blockchain capabilities were then mapped to the characteristics efficient supply chain. A total of 43 articles were extracted and identified. Findings indicate 10 characteristics of an efficient supply chain, such as flexibility in managing supply chain, minimum error, and transparency. The coding process also unfolds 14 applicable properties of blockchain in the healthcare supply chain, such as data availability, decentralisation, and data sharing.

KEYWORDS:

• Blockchain
• information veracity
• healthcare
• supply chain
• covid-19 pandemic
• systematic review

Acknowledgments

We thank Ms. Saskia Salmana for providing technical assistance during the submission process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by Universitas Padjadjaran under the ‘Hibah Artikel Review Universitas Padjadjaran’ program [Grant Agreement No. 1733/UN6.3.1/LT/2020].