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Description
Blockchain technology enables a distributed and decentralized environment without any central authority. Healthcare is one industry in which blockchain is expected to have significant impacts. In recent years, the Healthcare Information Exchange(HIE) has been shown to benefit the healthcare industry remarkably. It has been shown that blockchain could help to improve multiple aspects of the HIE system.
When Blockchain technology meets HIE, there are only a few proposed systems and they all suffer from the following two problems. First, the existing systems are not patient-centric in terms of data governance. Patients do not own their data and have no direct control over it. Second, there is no defined protocol among different systems on how to share sensitive data.
To address the issues mentioned above, this paper proposes MedFabric4Me, a blockchain-based platform for HIE. MedFabric4Me is a patient-centric system where patients own their healthcare data and share on a need-to-know basis. First, analyzed the requirements for a patient-centric system which ensures tamper-proof sharing of data among participants. Based on the analysis, a Merkle root based mechanism is created to ensure that data has not tampered. Second, a distributed Proxy re-encryption system is used for secure encryption of data during storage and sharing of records. Third, combining off-chain storage and on-chain access management for both authenticability and privacy.
MedFabric4Me is a two-pronged solution platform, composed of on-chain and off-chain components. The on-chain solution is implemented on the secure network of Hyperledger Fabric(HLF) while the off-chain solution uses Interplanetary File System(IPFS) to store data securely. Ethereum based Nucypher, a proxy re-encryption network provides cryptographic access controls to actors for encrypted data sharing.
To demonstrate the practicality and scalability, a prototype solution of MedFabric4Me is implemented and evaluated the performance measure of the system against an already implemented HIE.
Results show that decentralization technology like blockchain could help to mitigate some issues that HIE faces today, like transparency for patients, slow emergency response, and better access control.
Finally, this research concluded with the benefits and shortcomings of MedFabric4Me with some directions and work that could benefit MedFabric4Me in terms of operation and performance.
When Blockchain technology meets HIE, there are only a few proposed systems and they all suffer from the following two problems. First, the existing systems are not patient-centric in terms of data governance. Patients do not own their data and have no direct control over it. Second, there is no defined protocol among different systems on how to share sensitive data.
To address the issues mentioned above, this paper proposes MedFabric4Me, a blockchain-based platform for HIE. MedFabric4Me is a patient-centric system where patients own their healthcare data and share on a need-to-know basis. First, analyzed the requirements for a patient-centric system which ensures tamper-proof sharing of data among participants. Based on the analysis, a Merkle root based mechanism is created to ensure that data has not tampered. Second, a distributed Proxy re-encryption system is used for secure encryption of data during storage and sharing of records. Third, combining off-chain storage and on-chain access management for both authenticability and privacy.
MedFabric4Me is a two-pronged solution platform, composed of on-chain and off-chain components. The on-chain solution is implemented on the secure network of Hyperledger Fabric(HLF) while the off-chain solution uses Interplanetary File System(IPFS) to store data securely. Ethereum based Nucypher, a proxy re-encryption network provides cryptographic access controls to actors for encrypted data sharing.
To demonstrate the practicality and scalability, a prototype solution of MedFabric4Me is implemented and evaluated the performance measure of the system against an already implemented HIE.
Results show that decentralization technology like blockchain could help to mitigate some issues that HIE faces today, like transparency for patients, slow emergency response, and better access control.
Finally, this research concluded with the benefits and shortcomings of MedFabric4Me with some directions and work that could benefit MedFabric4Me in terms of operation and performance.
ContributorsVishnoi, Manish (Author) / Boscovic, Dragan (Thesis advisor) / Candan, Kasim S (Thesis advisor) / Grando, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020