Towards an ABAC Break-Glass to access EMRs in case of emergency based on Blockchain

Abstract

Blockchain technology is a fast-evolving sector that has proposed value in different domains. A distributed health care system for managing electronic medical records has various significant advantages in comparison to centralized health care systems. In a distributed system without a central authority, many threats such as data leakage by human mistake or a single point of failure are no longer feasible. A small number of recent research have proposed health care systems that have used IPFS and Blockchain as part of their security and storage components. Both have a transparent process and clear logic as a distributed system. In emergency care, access to medical records is an indisputable need to make efficient decisions fast. Current regulatory and bureaucratic processes make it near impossible to serve the data in a timely manner. This research designs a model of a break-glass mechanism for EMR management systems to provide access to healthcare professionals just in case of emergency. This conceptual model provides access to patients' records regarding patient privacy and data security, which they set previously by themselves.