Blockchain based smart contracts for internet of medical things in e-healthcare

Abstract

The concept of Blockchain has penetrated a wide range of scientific areas, and its use is considered to rise exponentially in the near future. Executing short scripts of predefined code called smart contracts on Blockchain can eliminate the need of intermediaries and can also raise the multitude of execution of contracts. In this paper, we discuss the concept of Blockchain along with smart contracts and discuss their applicability in the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) in the e-healthcare domain. The paper analyses the dimensions that decentralization and the use of smart contracts will take the IoMT in e-healthcare, proposes a novel architecture, and also outlines the advantages, challenges, and future trends related to the integration of all three. The proposed architecture shows its effectiveness with average packet delivery ratio, average latency, and average energy efficiency performance parameters when compared with traditional approaches. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.