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Patient health records(PHRs) are crucial and sensitive as they contain essential information and are frequently shared among healthcare entities. This information must remain correct, up to date, private and accessible only to the authorized entities. Moreover, access must also be assured during health emergency crises such as the recent outbreak, which represents the greatest test of the flexibility and the efficiency of PHR sharing among healthcare providers, which ended up an immense interruption to the healthcare industry. Moreover, the right to privacy is the most fundamental right for a patient. Hence, the patient health records in the healthcare sector have faced issues with privacy breaches, insider outside attacks, and unauthorized access to crucial patients’ records. As a result, it pushes more patients to demand more control, security, and a smoother experience when they want to access their health records. Furthermore, the lack of interoperability among the healthcare system and providers and the added weight of cyber-attacks on an already overwhelmed system have called for an immediate solution. In this work, we developed a secured blockchain framework that safeguards patients’ full control over their health data which can be stored in their private IPFS and later shared with an authorized provider. Furthermore, the system ensures privacy and security while handling patient data, which can only be shared with the patients. The proposed Security and privacy analysis show promising results in providing time savings, enhanced confidentiality, and less disruption in patient-provider interactions.
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Enhancing SARS-CoV-2 variants Research with Blockchain Architecture
The emergence of the novel SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) virus in 2019 has led to continuous monitoring of the outbreak attempting to generate accurate reports of people's health information to understand the pandemic's impact. It is likely that more variants will emerge since not all countries and populations have been vaccinated. Thus, with SARS-CoV-2's constant mutation, researchers need to collect individuals' health data to study these variants and vaccine efficacy, especially those who show symptoms. However, researchers have difficulties building comprehensive datasets because people are unwilling to release their health information or have no way to report their health statuses (i.e., at-home testing). This problem stems from a lack of complete control over who assesses their health data. Hence, they cannot guarantee the security, privacy, and integrity of the disclosed health information. As the problem of building secure databases persists, researchers find it challenging to accurately report any evolving variants within a short period. In this work, we propose a blockchain architecture that can guarantee patients' health data integrity, privacy, and security, encouraging individuals to disclose their health information freely. This solution gives patients complete control over who assesses their health information. The framework proposed access management to patients' health data for researchers and contact tracers. This solution classifies patient health information to different sensitivity levels and manages access based on this sensitivity. In case of unauthorized access, the proposed solution detects and prevents such access, thereby ensuring the patient's health information's security, integrity, and privacy.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2029295
- PAR ID:
- 10471038
- Publisher / Repository:
- IEEE
- Date Published:
- ISBN:
- 978-1-6654-8684-2
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 7
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- Toronto, ON, Canada
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/IEMTRONICS55184.2022.9795830
