A GDPR-Compliant Framework for IoT-Based Personal Health Records Using Blockchain

Abstract

An up-to-date personal health record (PHR) system is crucial for people's health. Achieving a reliable PHR system in the e-Health and m-Health era is still a challenge concerning data integration from different EHRs, data interoperability, and enforcing that access to data is fully under the patient's control. We address these challenges by proposing an electronic health wallet (EHW) system that uses emergent decentralized technologies like blockchain and IPFS and adopts health data interoperability standards and technologies like FHIR's APIs. The EHW stands on a GDPR-compliant framework for IoT-based PHR systems that ensures both data privacy and interoperability. The proposed conceptual framework and system architecture provide a comprehensive solution for a patient-centered IoT-based PHR system that preserves data privacy and satisfies the data interoperability needs. By encouraging patients to share their data in a controlled way, also enables health big data analytics by utilizing the IoT data in a privacy-preserving fashion.