Towards Secure & Scalable Public Health Informatics: Integrating Blockchain with Google Cloud

Abstract

Public health infrastructure produces huge amount of data, majorly sensitive data that needs safe, transparent and efficient administration. Traditional systems have some limitations in terms of data breaches, data isolation, and scalability restrictions. This study proposed an innovative framework for building a decision support system (DSS) for public health by integrating blockchain technology with cloud technology (Google Cloud Platform). The framework has strong infrastructure for data security, distributed access control with real-time analytical capabilities. By using the scalability and flexibility of cloud computing, the proposed solution can able to provide guarantees on data security and efficient data management of public health records. The proposed framework also incorporates Blockchain connectivity. The Blockchain connectivity which applies unique Ethereum hash in order to establish data integrity. The Ethereum blockchain improves security and ensuring data integrity by applying immutability through smart contracts. For scalable and flexible storage and real time data access, Google Cloud platform (GCP) is used. GCP has some embedded compliance features like GDPR, HIPPA, SOC2 etc. to adhere with required compliance features. The system also utilizes Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) for storing files. Security measure is improved through redundancy and resilience. Embedding epidemiological model within DSS improve decision-making and enable future predictions. The combination of cloud’s distributed architecture, blockchain’s immutability, along with public health epidemiological model makes the decision support system highly scalable, tamper-proof and efficient. Case studies related to COVID-19 along with non-communicable disease management are used to validate the framework.