Patient Wellness: Ethereum Based Electronic Health Record Storage

Abstract

Medical and health related information about patients qualifies as sensitive and personal information. There are many laws such as HIPAA that prohibit sharing of a patient’s intimate medical data to third party organizations without the full consent of the patient. With this in consideration, when the actual medical health record systems are analysed, vulnerabilities that threatens the confidentiality and integrity of the data were found. The other consideration about the current system is the fact that patients do not have control over their data. Therefore, a decentralized ledger can resolve such security issues, where can have control on their own data. Such a decentralization can be implemented by utilizing blockchain technology. Also, within a decentralized system, many number of participants would be connected as network participants. Hence, a permissioned blockchain system using Ethereum helps in facing these attacks. The proposed Ethereum based Electronic Health Record storage system uses InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), for storing the patient’s sensitive data that can be encrypted and only after duly authorized by the patient, a person can view or change it. Further, the proposed Ethereum based Electronic Health Record storage system system can be used to protect other kinds of sensitive data without being limited to health data.