IRJET- Blockchain Technology for Securing Healthcare Records

International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056
Volume: 06 Issue: 04 | Mar 2019 www.irjet.net p-ISSN: 2395-0072
© 2019, IRJET | Impact Factor value: 7.211 | ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal | Page 1804
Blockchain Technology for Securing Healthcare Records
Sunil Bakale1, Sangamesh k2
18th SEM, B.E in Computer Science. Rural Engineering College Hulkoti, Karnataka, India
2Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science. Rural Engineering College Hulkoti, Karnataka, India
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Abstract - The modern day methods used to record as well as
share patient related data are deeply flawed. These Short
comings limit the amount of access patients have to their
clinical records, reduce availability of essential data to
healthcare providers, and thusstandasanobstacleincreating
the ideal health care system. Storing crucial patient related
data on a Blockchain can help overcome the shortcomings
posed by the current model. This paper explores the
application of Blockchain as a novel approach to secure
storage of patient data, facilitate its secure sharing and
revolutionize the health care industry.
Key Words: blockchain, healthcare, securing health
records, blockchain challenges, blockchain healthcare
1. Introduction
Blockchain stores the Information across the Network or
personal Computers making them not just Centralized,
decentralized but distributedmeansnocentral company ora
person owns the System
The Blockchain uses a form of math called Cryptography to
ensure that Records can be Confidential and cannot change
by anyone else.
The healthcare records are fragmented, distributed over
different healthcare institution.In2015,140millionPatients
records were breached according to Protenus Breach
barometer report. A medical error is the third leading cause
of death in U.S. with a block-based protocol, every
modification regarding a patient’s record would be verified,
linked with other transactions and added as a block to chain
of blocks. Personal healthcare records need to be protected
with the highest standards with the increasing number of
data breaches incident in the past several years, the
awareness of the general public about the personal data
privacy will continue to increasing the necessity for data
privacy will grow stronger with an increasing number of
services and device collecting our personal data associated
with our personal identity.
Figure 1: Annually Reported Breaches.
2. Why Blockchain Was Developed
To automatically provide Accuracy, Security, and Modify
ability of Digital records using Computer and Mathematics.
Blockchain uses Cryptology to achieve desired level of
Privacy and Security for Digital records.
3. Blockchain Addresses Current Healthcare
Challenges
Blockchain provides opportunity to overcome challenges
that exist in the healthcare industry today.
Challenges are interoperability, security, Integrity,
traceability and universal access.
Figure 2 : Advantages of Blockchain
3.1Interoperability
Today healthcare organizations are at different maturity
levels as far as interoperability of healthcare data is
concerned. There are some organizations who are exploring
use of FHIR, while several organizations are using the CDA
standard for data exchange and some share data using HL7
2.X standard varying data standards across organizations is
another challenge which reduces which hamper Quality
scores interoperability Blockchain helps overcome this
challenge by accessing data through APIs. With transfer of
data through APIs, blockchain achieves standardization of
data format, which is used to transmit data irrespective of
the capabilities of EHRs to communicate different HL7
versions.

3.2 Security
Security in healthcare industryencompassesvariousaspects
based on integrity of data maintained in an organization.
Tampering and security breach of healthcare data is a
growing concern for many healthcare organizations. It is
difficult to tamper with data present in blockchain as it
requires validation from different nodes in the chain.
Blockchain offers inbuilt security features as the data in
blockchain is encrypted with private key of the sender and
only intended recipient can decrypt data using key from the
sender.
3.3 Integrity
Blockchain’s distributed ledger and immutable transactions
helps ensure data integrity while encryption of data
enhances data security across the network. With the
implementationofBlockchaintechnology,multipleinstances
of obsolete patient data with various stakeholders are
replaced with single source of up-to-date information of
patient information. Patient is the custodial owner of data
controlling who has access to PHI information.
3.4 Universal Access
Managing access to patient data across healthcare entities is
a challenge where Blockchain can help. Blockchain ensures
that required data is present at every node and is available
for use to the authorized entities based on the access rights
provided through smart contracts or other mechanisms.
3.5 Cost of Maintenance
Maintenance of a typical healthcare information system
involves various operations including but not limited to
performing backup storage services, having recovery
mechanisms in place and ensuring up to date fields. In case
of blockchain, data is distributed across the network and
there is no single point of failure leading to inherent backup
mechanism. Also, a single version of data is copied on every
node of the blockchain. Thisreducestransactionvolumethat
occurs between each information system reducing the
burden on the healthcare ecosystem
4. Key Benefits of Blockchain for Healthcare
4.1Blockchain is Decentralized management
Blockchain is peer to peer network that is each node runs
independently while following the protocols so blockchainis
suitable for applications where Stakeholders wish to
collaborate with one another without sending control to a
central management intermediary.
4.2Blockchain is Immutable Audit Trail
Blockchain supports create and read functions that it is very
difficult to change the data or records. Thus, Blockchain is
suitable as an unchargeable ledger to record critical
information (example: insurance claim records).
4.3Data Provenance
In Blockchain, The ownership can only be changed by the
owner, following the Cryptographicprotocols.Alsotheorigin
of the assets are traceable that is the sources or the data and
records can be confirmed, increasing the reusability of
verified data (example: patient consent records).
4.4Robustness and Availability
Blockchain are based on distributed technology and thus do
not suffer from single point of failure, each node has a whole
copy of whole historical data records. Thus Blockchain is
when the preservationand continuousavailabilityofrecords
(example: the electronic health records of patients are
important).
5. Applications of Blockchain in Healthcare
5.1 Securing Patient Identification Information
Currently, all the health informationaboutpatientsarebeing
recorded in Databasescontrolledbyindividual organizations
or group of organizations. It is not being shared with other
organizations due to security issues and chance of the data
being modified or tampered with. Buthavinga singletrusted
source of information for health details will be a great boon
to patients and healthcare organizations alike. Blockchain
can be used to save this data, which can be accessed by all
the organizations, allowing doctors to see the prescriptions
for a patient by otherpractitioners.Blockchainpreventsdata
corruption using hashes and the block chaincanbedesign to
be viewed only with a pass key
5.2 Maintaining longitudinal patient history
Block chain can be used as a generic tool to keep data
securely in a distributed, encrypted ledger along with
controlling the resources who can access this ledger. Rather
than having one central administrator that acts as a guard
the health data, there's one shared ledger which is spread
across a network of synchronized, similar databases visible
to anybody with access. This helps in preserving the patient
health records securely and the same will be accessibleeven
if a few of the systems in the data-network are unavailable.
5.3 Determining the Integrity of Drug Supply Chains
The healthcare industry is suffering massive losses from the
proliferation of counterfeit drugs. A recent global
investigation uncovered roughly $74 Million worth of
counterfeit drugs. However, it is envisioned that with the
proper implementation of Blockchain-based supply chain
systems, the integrity of drugs and services can be assured.
This will be made possible by maintaining a Blockchain
based custody log that tracks and records every step and
custodian in the drug supply chain. This would let

pharmaceutical companies monitor their drugs down to the
product level. Additional modules such as Smart Contracts
can be added to the system to help build trust between the
suppliers and Pharmaceutical companies. Provenance has
thus come to become a major area for the application of
Blockchain technology. Within a single supplychainofdrugs
and pharmaceuticals many use cases exist wherein
Blockchain technology can be appropriately leveraged. A lot
of this has to do with the fact that there are certainloopholes
in the transportation processes, primarily due to the lack of
transparency that can be exploited to introduce counterfeit
drugs into the chain. In an effort to curb the problem, Drug
Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) has formally been
implemented in the US to help combat the proliferation of
counterfeit drugs.
5.4 Securing Billing and Claims Sector
The Financial Sector of the Healthcare industry has much to
gain from blockchain technology. Secure transaction of bills
and process of claims can be established using blockchains,
while tracking this information in case there is a need to
backtrack. It has proved its potency in this sector through
Bitcoins, Ethereum etc.
6. Conclusion and Future Work
Blockchain is a Technology promising that is is open and
secure access to healthcare data. Blockchain is not enough
for large scale business deployment. Many barriers needs to
be overcome before blockchain can be fully adopted as a
main stream technology for real world business solutions.
To development of open system interfaces, and having
intermediaries who currently profit from controlling the
data to interface with blockchain system. To power
blockchain applications, we need to continuously improve
low-level blockchain protocols that are equivalent to the
backbone of current internet services such as TCP/IP and
HTTP. We need to improve trust and decision making
process in blockchain so that system is more scalable with
higher transaction without sacrificing security. One way is
that Blockchain network could assign more weight into
trusted nodes to expedite the computation of the block.
Healthcare has its data value within a data pool. Blockchain
tokens can be used to incentivize the data donors. It is
important to have incentive mechanism as a built-in feature
of the system to power the functioning of the chain. Build
application that allow patients to donate their data in an
anonymous way. The pricing model for variouscategoriesof
data needs to be figured out. Another interesting topic is the
communications across the multiple blockchain systems.
Multiple blockchain system even for healthcare system that
might interact with each other.
REFERENCES
[1] “How Blockchain Technology Works. Guide for
Beginners”, Cointelegraph, 2018.[Online].Available :
https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/how-
blockchain-technology-worksguide-for
beginners#nodes. [Accessed: 28- Sep- 2018].
[2] “Application of Blockchain Technology in Securing
Healthcare Records” Faraz Zafar Ranjana Rajnish
Scholar, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow,
Professor, Amity University, Uttar Pradesh, Lucknow.
[3] “Blockchain for Healthcare” Vishal Rawal Healthcare
Consultant, Prashant Mascarenhas Healthcare
Consultant, CitiusTech
[4] “ Beyond the hype of Blockchain in healthcare”
December 2017
[5] “Investment Thesis: BlockchaininHealthcareAlexander
Tsado 12/8/2016”
[6] “Blockchain Technology for Healthcare: Facilitating the
Transition to Patient-Driven Interoperability” by
William J. Gordon , Christian Catalini
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsxjlsBYmrI
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSo_EIwHSd4
[9] “Applications of Blockchain Technologyin Medicineand
Healthcare: Challenges and Future Perspectives” by
Asad Ali Siyal , Aisha Zahid Junejo , MuhammadZawish,
Kainat Ahmed , Aiman Khalil 2 and Georgia Soursou

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