- The paper proposes a blockchain framework that secures EMR sharing with fine-grained access control and encrypted cloud storage.
- It demonstrates a working prototype for oncology data sharing, integrating permissioned blockchain with smart contracts in Go.
- The study identifies scalability challenges and suggests future improvements using advanced consensus protocols for enhanced data integrity.
Analyzing Blockchain-based Frameworks for Electronic Medical Records Sharing
Blockchain technology has increasingly been considered for various applications beyond financial transactions, due to its inherent properties of immutability, transparency, and decentralization. The paper "Secure and Trustable Electronic Medical Records Sharing using Blockchain" by Dubovitskaya et al., explores the applicability of blockchain technology in healthcare, specifically for the sharing of Electronic Medical Records (EMR).
Core Propositions
The paper presents a blockchain-based framework aimed at securing the management and sharing of EMR data, especially pertinent to oncology patients. The authors articulate two key contributions to the field:
- Scenarios for Blockchain Application: The paper posits multiple implementation scenarios for blockchain in healthcare:
- Primary patient care to address data management and sharing challenges among disparate medical institutions.
- Data aggregation and sharing for medical research ensuring data authenticity while maintaining patient privacy.
- Integration of various connected health stakeholders to enhance patient care.
- Data Sharing Prototype in Oncology: A specific implementation is described wherein blockchain technology is utilized for data sharing among healthcare providers involved in cancer treatment, in collaboration with a U.S. hospital's Department of Radiation Oncology. The prototype ensures privacy, security, and fine-grained access control.
Technical Implementation
The framework leverages a permissioned blockchain technology, utilizing a cloud service to store encrypted patient data, with blockchain used to maintain metadata and access policies. This separation between data storage and policy management ensures:
- Data Security and Privacy: The use of cryptographic principles, such as hashing and digital signatures, secures transactions and stored records.
- Access Control: A finely-tuned access control system allows patients to manage permissions over their data, utilizing smart contracts written in Go to enforce these policies.
- Data Integrity and Availability: The system's architecture guarantees data integrity through cryptographically signed hashes, while availability is bolstered by cloud-based storage.
Implications and Future Work
The adoption of a permissioned blockchain is prudent in this context given the sensitive nature of medical data, ensuring that access is restricted to vetted individuals and entities. This choice mitigates potential misuse, maintains patient privacy, and ensures responsiveness—a vital requirement for healthcare applications.
The paper acknowledges potential scalability issues inherent in employing PBFT consensus protocol and proposes evaluating hierarchical BFT protocols in future work. While current implementations focus on textual EMR data, extending to radiology and other forms of data presents additional challenges that the authors aim to explore.
Conclusion
This research contributes valuably to the discourse on blockchain applications in healthcare by providing both theoretical propositions and a practical implementation for EMR data sharing. The focus on oncology data sharing is a compelling use case, showcasing blockchain's potential in enhancing patient treatment and research data integration. Future work, as suggested by the authors, on expanding data categories and real-world testing will be crucial to demonstrating blockchain's efficacy at scale in clinical settings.