A Fog Computing-Based Architecture for Medical Records Management

Abstract

The aging of the world’s population and the growth in the number of people with chronic diseases have increased expenses with medical care. Thus, the use of technological solutions has been widely adopted in the medical field to improve the patients’ health. In this context, approaches based on Cloud Computing have been used to store and process the information generated in these solutions. However, using Cloud can create delays that are intolerable for medical applications. Thus, the Fog Computing paradigm emerged as an alternative to overcome this problem, bringing computation and storage closer to the data sources. However, managing medical data stored in Fog is still a challenge. Moreover, characteristics of availability, performance, interoperability, and privacy need to be considered in approaches that aim to explore this problem. So, this article shows a software architecture based on Fog Computing and designed to facilitate the management of medical records. This architecture uses Blockchain concepts to provide the necessary privacy features and to allow Fog Nodes to carry out the authorization process in a distributed way. Finally, this paper describes a case study that evaluates the performance, privacy, and interoperability requirements of the proposed architecture in a home-centered healthcare scenario.

[Retracted] Merging RFID and Blockchain Technologies to Accelerate Big Data Medical Research Based on Physiological Signals

“…RFID protocol framework based on fog computing and blockchain is used for medical big data collection and data privacy protection [19][20][21]. Gu et al [19] proposed a security and privacy protection solution for fog computing, which designs a framework for security and privacy protection using fog computing and a privacy leakage based on contextbased dynamic and static information to improve health and medicine infrastructure.…”

“…Gu et al [19] proposed a security and privacy protection solution for fog computing, which designs a framework for security and privacy protection using fog computing and a privacy leakage based on contextbased dynamic and static information to improve health and medicine infrastructure. Silva et al [20] proposed a medical records management architecture based on fog computing. e architecture used blockchain technology to provide necessary privacy protection and to allow fog nodes to execute authorization processes in a distributed manner.…”

“…Step 4 (17) Based on the received HMAC, WISP can confirm the timeliness of the message and the equality of the session keys calculated on both sides (18) After verifying successfully, Nbr++, K2 � � K' ⊕ NW; (19) WISP records (K2, Seq1, Nbr) to awaken the IMD antenna (20) When IMD detects the request, collects (K1, Seq1), and employs them to exchange data securely with the programmer. contrary, if the private key is used to encrypt data, only the corresponding public key can be used for decryption.…”

The Current State of Research, Challenges, and Future Research Directions of Blockchain Technology in Patient Care: Systematic Review

“…Interoperability is the ability of different information systems, devices, and applications ( systems ) to access, exchange, integrate, and cooperatively use data in a coordinated manner, within and across organizational, regional, and national boundaries, to provide timely and seamless portability of information [ 69 ]. Given that HIT infrastructure might vary by hospital, department, and other structural divisions, HIT incompatibility may arise when data transfer is attempted across these systems, as in the case of HIE; 9% (6/70) papers evaluated blockchain’s use for resolving the poor incompatibility of existing HIT [ 21 , 22 , 26 , 27 , 30 , 55 ], and 4% (3/70) papers focused on how blockchain can address the poor integration of large volumes of data from different sources [ 26 , 37 , 61 ]. One challenge to interoperability is the waiting time for data to be updated, affecting the temporal facet of interoperability and real-time access.…”

“…The third category covers HIT’s alignment with the health organizations’ goals to achieve specific health care outcomes such as health care quality and system satisfaction; 10% (7/70) papers focused on addressing the inefficiency of current health systems, such as lengthy processing times and the inability to simultaneously process large data volumes [ 16 , 24 , 28 , 37 , 55 , 67 , 77 ]. With regard to the quality of patient care, quite often, missing or incorrect health data lead to repetitive lab tests or diagnostic errors, which can be detrimental to patients’ health; 9% (6/70) papers discussed how blockchain can reduce misdiagnosis and overtreatment [ 27 , 32 , 35 , 40 , 78 , 79 ]. Data dredging may occur in clinical trials where researchers may alter or omit data to achieve a statistically significant result in their experiments; 4% (3/70) papers addressed data dredging [ 32 , 52 , 70 ].…”