A patient-centric blockchain-assisted health information exchange framework with access control

Electronic healthcare records have become integral to delivering patient-centric care, as they enable enhanced communication, facilitate collaborative decision-making, and improve care coordination. However, the deployment of these records necessitates meticulous management to ensure reliable access control mechanisms and comprehensive data traceability. Blockchain technology has the potential to significantly enhance patient-centric healthcare by enforcing regulatory constraints through the implementation of smart contracts. This study proposes a blockchain-powered framework, designated as PaSCon, that is specifically designed for governing sensitive medical data not suitable for exposure to external repositories. The proposed framework utilizes two interactive smart contracts to monitor and record any instances of data-sharing activities among healthcare professionals participating in the patient’s care, facilitated through a key-sharing mechanism. The interaction between the smart contracts allows secure exchange of information among trusted entities while preserving data ownership rights. The framework is implemented and evaluated in an Ethereum-based environment utilizing Solidity-based smart contracts. To assess the framework’s performance under various conditions, three prominent public cryptographic algorithms – ECC, ECIES, and RSA – were examined during the experiments. The results highlight the execution time and associated costs of the specific activities permitted within PaSCon when applying each of these three algorithms individually.