A Decentralized Blockchain Framework for Secure and Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Data Management

Abstract

The management of healthcare data has become an intricate task with the advent of digital health records, multiple data sources, and the need for security and privacy. Current centralized healthcare systems are vulnerable to major issues, including single points of failure, data breaches, opacity, and poor data-sharing mechanisms between entities such as hospitals, patients and insurance agencies. This calls for a secure, decentralised and trusted approach to healthcare data management. This study presents a decentralized blockchain-based approach for secure and privacy-aware management of healthcare data. The system aims to exploit the features of blockchain technology to achieve immutability, transparency, and decentralization without the need for a trusted central authority. Smart contracts are employed to enforce access control policies, facilitating secure data sharing while maintaining privacy. Cryptographic methods like hashing and encryption are used to safeguard confidential medical information and ensure confidentiality. The framework also includes decentralized identity management and permissioned blockchain technologies to comply with medical regulations and integrity of data. The proposed framework is validated through extensive experimentation to show improved data security and cyberattack mitigation, and efficient data access in comparison to conventional systems. The findings also confirm enhanced scalability, low latency in secure data transactions, and strong privacy protection. In summary, the decentralized framework offers a secure and efficient data management solution for modern healthcare systems, facilitating secure interoperability and trust among stakeholders, and protecting patient data privacy in practical healthcare settings.