Medical health care records have the potential to affect the quality of an individual’s life. Given the rise of E-health care systems, protecting this information from adversaries is of utmost requirement.
Blockchain can be promising in providing security and integrity of these medical data across millions of servers. MedChain leverages blockchain technology to improve the interoperability and management of electronic health care records.
Health records and security
Confidentiality is a fundamental right and is of paramount importance in the healthcare systems. The specialists require the medical records provided during consultations, which helps in making clinical choices. Apart from medical specialists, social insurance experts also require these health records.
They require these records in case of the prosecution and as proof of approaches by the Doctor. Patient life is dependent on it. Errors in subtle elements of medical records can hinder the treatment of the patients. It can also prompt to low quality treatment affecting the patient’s life in the most conceivable way.
This increasing need for data privacy has opened the doors of blockchain technology. Its application in the nonfinancial domain, especially healthcare, is crucial. MedChain promises to provide a solution for the security of medical records along these lines.
The MedChain
MedChain offers a blockchain and distributed storage solution for Electronic Medical Health Records (EMR). MedChain aims to leverage blockchain technology to establish a secure and transparent framework. This framework uses EMR, which will vastly improve the quality of care for patients.
This reduces the healthcare provider’s cost. It allows companies to build software within a globally compliant framework. Hence, facilitating secure storage and transparency.
The solution benefits not only large hospital systems but also small private practitioners and laboratories. This is because they supply tests or durable equipment, improving interoperability.
MedChain architecture
The provider’s database continuously stores the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) of the Patients. It utilizes the existing systems, and patients can only read data. The data providers are responsible for managing the blockchain.
Blockchain provides access to EMRs. Hence, blockchain can store all the history of access and record ownership. This provides a log of the events in the EMRs, thereby ensuring data integrity.
SHA-256 is employed to hash the blockchains, ensuring its integrity. MedChain keeps the hash value of the link created during the record’s issue to access the blockchain’s EMR.
Accessing a record involves sending an encrypted query link over HTTPS to the user having access rights. Therefore, the hash value stored in the blockchain ensures that no alterations have been made outside the blockchain during the transfer. This is because the value of the hash is unique to the original document.
Time-based smart contracts ensure privacy in mechanic for governing transactions. Advanced encryption and authentication techniques maintain security and access control. The use of comprehensive logs provides interoperability, auditability, and accessibility.
The new incentive mechanism integrated with the Proof of Authority (PoA) consensus algorithm is used to craft, validate, and append a new block.
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