Blockchain-based Patient Portal for Mental Health Management

Abstract

Mental health is an important aspect of well-being as it encompasses emotional, psychological and social well-being. The use of patient portals in mental health care has gained attention as a potential tool to improve access to care for individuals with mental illness. Patient portals may be vulnerable to unauthorized access if appropriate security measures are not put in place. This study leverages blockchain technology to create tamper-proof patient records. The proposed solution uses an on-chain database that stores hashes and the actual medical record of a patient as well as an off-chain solution that handles encryption of each user’s medical record using their respective keys in a trustless manner before they are uploaded on-chain. A secure smart contract hosted on the Ethereum and the Byzantine Fault Tolerance consensus algorithm was used to ensure patient privacy. The research employed the Comparative Analysis Research Methodology as the research methodology and the Kanban methodology as the software development methodology. The research project concludes that the proposed solution addresses the current security issues and data privacy concerns in patient data. The decentralized nature of blockchain ensures security, transparency and tamper-proof storage of information. Further research is needed for future advancements, like integrating blockchain-based patient portals with wearable devices and IoT.