Fusing Identity Management, HL7 and Blockchain into a Global Healthcare Record Sharing Architecture

Abstract

Healthcare record sharing among various medical roles is a critical and challenging research problem especially in today's everchanging global IT solutions. The emergence of blockchain as a new enabling technology brought radical changes to numerous business applications, including healthcare. Blockchain is a trusted distributed ledger that forms a decentralized infrastructure. There have been several proposals regarding the sharing of critical healthcare records over blockchain infrastructure without requiring prior knowledge/trust of the parties involved (patients, service providers, and insurance companies). Another yet important issue is to securely share medical records across various countries for travelling patients to ensure an integrated and ubiquitous healthcare service. In this paper, we present a globally integrated healthcare record sharing architecture based on blockchain and HL7 client. Healthcare records are stored at the hosting country and are not stored on the blockchain. This architecture avails medical records of travelling patients temporarily and after performing necessary authentication. The actual authorisation process is performed on a federated identity management system, such as, the Shibboleth. Though there are similarities with identity management systems, our system is unique as it involves the patient in the permission process and discloses to them the identities of entities accessed their health records. Our solution also improves performance and guarantees privacy and security through the use of blockchain and identity management system.

Blockchain technology applications in the health domain: a multivocal literature review

“…Blockchain and Machine Learning technologies were integrated for the early prediction of diseases in this network Electronic health/medical record management The need for systems to be secure against attacks due to the sensitivity of patient data in electronic health records (EHR) The need for patient data to be up to date and available when needed [ 85 , 115 , 117 , 126 , 132 , 145 , 177 ] provide EHR solutions for effective and secure storage of patients’ medical data using blockchain. Due to their decentralized structure and cryptographic functions, blockchains prevent hackers from breaching or corrupting data, and keeping data up-to-date [ 89 – 92 , 94 , 95 , 100 – 112 , 118 , 119 , 124 , 125 , 131 , 136 , 138 – 140 , 143 , 144 , 146 , 147 , 151 – 153 , 156 , 159 , 162 , 165 , 178 ] from formal literature and [ 2 , 11 , 12 , 73 , 74 , 154 ] [ 15 , 120 , 129 , 133 , 134 , 141 , 142 ...…”

Blockchain research in healthcare: a bibliometric review and current research trends

“…IEEE Access tops the list with 100 published articles, followed by the Journal of Medical Internet Research and Sensors , which published 34 and 26 articles respectively, and Electronics and Journal of Medical Systems, which published 18 articles each. Although journals from the fields of computer science and medicine dominate the research domain, other disciplines, such as business and management, are also included in the total journal list (Abdeen et al, 2019 ; Hastig & Sodhi, 2020 ). Hence, it is recognized that BC healthcare research covers a wide knowledge base that spans academic disciplines.…”

Integrating Blockchain and Deep Learning for Enhanced Mobile VPN Forensics: A Comprehensive Framework

“…Blockchain technology, known for its decentralization, transparency, and security, has found applications in various domains beyond its initial use in cryptocurrency [14][15][16]. In healthcare, blockchain provides a secure platform for managing patient records, ensuring data integrity and accessibility while maintaining patient confidentiality [17][18][19][20]. In vehicle tracking, it offers a reliable and tamper-proof system for logging vehicular data, essential for fleet management and regulatory compliance [21].…”