A Blockchain-based Architecture Framework for Secure Sharing of Personal Health Data

Health information exchanges have been popular for some time with their advantages known and widely researched. In spite of their utility in increasing provider efficiency and decreasing administrative costs, one challenge that has persisted is the data owners inability to control data after transmission. The lack of technical mechanisms to effectively control patients’ health data in the network significantly affects participation of health and medical institutions while perpetrating the silo-based data management that locks value and potential inherent in the data. This not only affects researchers due to the lack of data for research and analysis but the quality of life of patients.We present a blockchain-supported architectural framework for secure control of personal data in a health information exchange by pairing user-generated acceptable use policies with smart contracts. We highlight the merits of our system, its user-centric focus and also show experimental results along with directions for extending our work. The framework introduces minimal risk to data by architecting a mechanism for controlling data after sharing. In adopting our framework, health service providers can deliver a stronger assurance for data management than is possible with current systems.