A Multi-Layer Blockchain Framework with Zero-Knowledge Proof-Based Privacy Protection to Secure Electronic Health Records

Abstract

The pervasive adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) has improved the competence of healthcare storage, management of patient data and retrieval. These increase the vulnerability of EHR records through data breaches, unauthorized access, and proliferation of insider threat behaviors, with limited compatibility of health records. To address this issue, blockchain-based systems were introduced; however, they encountered leakage of sensitive information and have limited scalability. Concerning this, a Multi-Layer Blockchain framework integrated with Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) (MLB-ZKP) was proposed to secure the EHR systems by privacy-preserving verification and reduce sensitive data exposure. The multi-layer blockchain method ensures the data storage, secure transaction validation process and efficient access control process. The proposed framework integrates the ZKP mechanism to aid the secure authentication process and data verification process without revealing the sensitive information. The entire framework ensures the patientcentric data ownership, secure cross-institutional data sharing and a governing privacy protection process. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, available benchmark datasets were used. The experimental results show that the proposed framework exhibits increased privacy level, reduced data exposure risk and storage efficiency.