SmartMedChain: A Blockchain-Based Privacy-Preserving Smart Healthcare Framework

Abstract

Nowadays, the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technology worldwide is accelerating the digital transformation of healthcare industry. In this context, smart healthcare (s-healthcare) solutions are ensuring better and innovative opportunities for healthcare providers to improve patients’ care. However, these solutions raise also new challenges in terms of security and privacy due to the diversity of stakeholders, the centralized data management, and the resulting lack of trustworthiness, accountability, and control. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end Blockchain-based and privacy-preserving framework called SmartMedChain for data sharing in s-healthcare environment. The Blockchain is built on Hyperledger Fabric and stores encrypted health data by using the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), a distributed data storage solution with high resiliency and scalability. Indeed, compared to other propositions and based on the concept of smart contracts, our solution combines both data access control and data usage auditing measures for both Medical IoT data and Electronic Health Records (EHRs) generated by s-healthcare services. In addition, s-healthcare stakeholders can be held accountable by introducing an innovative Privacy Agreement Management scheme that monitors the execution of the service in respect of patient preferences and in accordance with relevant privacy laws. Security analysis and experimental results show that the proposed SmartMedChain is feasible and efficient for s-healthcare environments.

A Systematic Review of Internet of Things in Clinical Laboratories: Opportunities, Advantages, and Challenges

“…One study by Guo et al [ 70 ] on disseminating a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) test status for an infectious disease outbreak and leveraged cloud-based patient data storage is discussed. Three studies focusing on blockchain technology to create smart healthcare delivery models, including Celesti et al [ 71 ], El Majdoubi et al [ 72 ], and Ochôa et al [ 73 ], are discussed ( Table 3 ).…”

“…El Majdoubi et al (2021) [ 72 ] proposed a smart healthcare solution called SmartMedChain that used an end-to-end blockchain framework for data sharing. The system builds on the existing blockchain framework built on Hyperledger Fabric by creating an interplanetary file system (IFPS) that stores data.…”

“… Challenges of IoT technologies from primary studies based on key metrics defined in Section 1.4 , depicted in a scatter plot [ 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 ]. …”

Application Effect of Whole-Process Seamless Nursing Model Based on Smart Healthcare Mode in Perioperative Period of Patients Undergoing Hematoma Removal

“…Inclusion criteria: (1) patients were confirmed with intracranial hematoma by head CT or MRI and underwent hematoma removal [ 10 ]; (2) patients are aged no less than 18 years old; (3) the time from onset to treatment of the patients was within 24 hours; and (4) patients were treated in our hospital throughout the whole process and had complete clinical data.…”

The Blockchain Technologies in Healthcare: Prospects, Obstacles, and Future Recommendations; Lessons Learned from Digitalization

“…Many efforts have been made to balance data privacy and the requirement for patients and clinicians to use this sensitive data for various objectives to secure electronic health records. Consider the sensitive information in EHRs as an example of data that requires more excellent protection [26]. In addition, medical institutions are currently facing an upsurge in demand for real-time data from industrial and research companies.…”