Blockchain-based Secure Storage and Management of Electronic Health Record using a Smart Card

Abstract

The use of Blockchain for consistent storage, management, and sharing of healthcare records has received a lot of recent attention as a more reliable and dependable alternative to cloud-based storage. With the potential of Blockchain technology in the health sector being explored, its practical applications in real-world healthcare scenarios on a large scale are facing challenges like scalability, the authenticity of records, and management of dynamic consent of the patients for data access and sharing of medical records. The paper describes the implementation of a secured and efficient system for the storage of medical records on the Blockchain. The proposed implementation focuses on scalability, the authenticity of medical records, data privacy, and controlled access and uses Proof-of-Authority as a consensus algorithm on a Permissioned-Blockchain and two-factor authentication through a smart card. The paper also introduces a constant-time searching algorithm for faster records retrieval of Electronic Health Records. While the Proof-of-Authority consensus mechanism resolves the scalability issues, the smart card acts as the access control token, that ensures data privacy and makes it convenient for the users to operate.