A Review on Blockchain Based Electronic Health Records (EHRs)

Abstract

Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a data repository that contains sensitive health-related information of the patient such as disease and its diagnostic details, lab reports, contact information, which are sensitive and keeping it secure from any attacker is one of the challenging task. Conventional health care systems are utilizing based on the conventional central client-server approach, where full access rights of the system are given to the central authority. Here, the privacy and confidentiality of EHR data might be questionable, because the one who share data don’t have any right to access his data and neither control over their data with whom it has been shared with. Blockchain is a distributed, immutable, peer-to-peer, cryptographically secure ledger. Blockchain technology has shows potential solutions to address the challenges of the EHRs, such as data security, interoperability, confidentiality, and patient privacy. This paper reviewed blockchain based solutions for the EHRs, the role of smart contracts for managing data and automating process along with its integration for the cloud-based technology. It also explores the role of Internet of Thing (IoT)along with blockchain technology in the healthcare industry for addressing issues of Access control and Data security along with smart contract. Finally, it also provides outlook for the future direction to make blockchain based solution for the large scale EHR system in the healthcare industry.