A Survey on the Impact of Blockchain in Effective Organ Transplantation

Last decade has witnessed revolutionary changes in the field of Information Technology & Health Care. The digitization of healthcare data has enabled the effective storage, retrieval and sharing of medical information of the patients. It simplifies the tedious paper work involved in traditional data storage approaches providing cost effective and better health assistance. Given the sensitivity of medical information, it must be handled with the utmost care while maintaining confidentiality and privacy. Organ donation and transplant process is the most complicated area of health sector. There are several factors like scarcity of organs, lack of awareness among public, complexities involved in organ removal and implantation processes and black marketing that makes it challenging. To enable more transplants before patients on the organ waiting list pass away, an upsurge in the number of donors, handled by a more secure and accountable platform, is required. Blockchain with its distributed ledger technology offers a wider canvas for organ matching, breaking the regional barriers, with international waiting list databases. The security and immutability features of blockchain can ensure the privacy of the patients and reduces black market organ donations. This paper reviews the role that can be played by blockchain in improvising the existing organ transplantation procedure. Different systems implemented using blockchain technology are analyzed, highlighting their unique features.