Design of a Credible Blockchain-Based E-Health Records (CB-EHRS) Platform

Abstract

With the rapid development of electronic health care, the era of medical big data has already emerged. However, in the global electronic health industry environment, one of the significant challenges is that the various medical institutions are independent of one another. Patients, doctors and medical researchers have significant barriers in accessing medical data. As an intervention strategy using blockchain principle, this paper explores the characteristics of blockchain which are applicable to the management of electronic health records (EHRs), and presents a credible blockchain-based electronic health records (CB-EHRs) management platform. A CB-EHRs platform is characterized by decentralization, data tamper-proof, collective maintenance mechanisms, security and credibility. This platform cannot only realize data sharing between medical institutions, but also ensures the privacy of users. This paper introduces the components of the CB-EHRs platformmodel and the implementation principle of its related functions. In addition, this paper also reviews and selects the delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance (dBFT) consensus mechanism as a viable option for the CB-EHRs platform. Finally, by comparing with the Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT) consensus mechanism and our research, we highlight the potential advantages of our proposed CB-EHRs platform in the medical domain.