ACCORD: A Scalable Multileader Consensus Protocol for Healthcare Blockchain

Abstract

Blockchain is an emerging distributed and decentralized technology that promises to revolutionize the healthcare sector by securely storing and maintaining incorruptible electronic health record data. Consensus protocols are at the core of blockchain technology. They establish security and integrity in the system by ensuring that the majority of miners are in agreement on all transactions and blocks added to the distributed ledger. While many consensus protocols have been proposed, most of them require heavy computation and are not scalable. In this work, we propose a novel permissioned consensus protocol, named ACCORD, a multi-leader (quorum-based) protocol that achieves fork-resistance, robustness, and scalability. To achieve this, ACCORD consists of three distinct components: (1) an asynchronous quorum selection procedure to designate the creators of future blocks, (2) a block creation protocol run by the quorum to prevent omissions in the presence of honest quorum members, and (3) a decentralized arbitration protocol to ensure consensus by voting. Additionally, we implemented the protocol and conducted experiments to demonstrate scalability, robustness, and fairness.