BlockIoT-RETEL: Blockchain and IoT Based Read-Execute-Transact-Erase-Loop Environment for Integrating Personal Health Data

Abstract

The development and adoption of Electronic Health Records and health monitoring Internet of Things (IoT) devices have enabled the digitization of patient records. They have also substantially transformed the healthcare delivery system in remote patient monitoring, healthcare decision-making, and medical research. However, data tends to be fragmented among health information systems, preventing interoperability of medical data at the point of care. In order to address this gap, we propose and implement a novel architecture that utilizes blockchain and IoT technologies for integrating personal health data. The architecture comprises of two components: (1) BlockIoT contains a suite of smart contracts that define data collection and integration functionalities, and (2) RETEL utilizes a novel smart contract deployment and execution architecture. The BlockIoT-RETEL architecture combines these two components to provide a scalable mechanism for bootstrapping a personal health data collection infrastructure in the context of healthcare. We have compared the key functionalities of our system with existing comparable state-of-the-art systems in healthcare and evaluated the performance in prototypical healthcare settings with simulated data that shows promising results.