Blockchain enabled secure healthcare Systems

Abstract

Blockchain technology is known for its application in fields such as finance, banking and cryptocurrency and these are the fields that have very sensitive data that has to be stored and transferred securely. An important advantage of blockchain based system is that it is decentralized. The data stored is managed by a P2P network which eliminates several disadvantages that occur in centralized systems. Blockchain uses ad-hoc message passing. One such risk in a blockchain is that it avoids the central point of failure. Due to this advantage blockchain can be used in Healthcare systems. There is also step increase in the number of IoT devices which in turn is a threat to the patient’s medical data. This paper is aimed at giving an overview of the use of blockchain in healthcare systems. Blockchain can be used not only to secure patient information in their EHR’s but also allows them to give permission to entities as and when deemed necessary. We can use Hyperledger here in order to provide data access control. In order to take advantage of its decentralized nature, the EHR can be distributed among the various entities of the network such as doctor, medical practitioner, labs and so on.