Integrity of E-Health Record Ensured With Context-Based Merkle Tree Through Temporal Shadow in Blockchain

Integrity of E-Health Record Ensured With Context-Based Merkle Tree Through Temporal Shadow in Blockchain

Charanya R., Saravanaguru R. A. K.
DOI: 10.4018/IJITWE.2020100105
OnDemand:
(Individual Articles)
Available
$37.50
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

The patient's health record is sensitive and confidential information. The sharing of health information is a first venture to make health services more productive and improve the quality of healthcare services. Decentralized online ledgers with blockchain-based platforms were already proposed and in use to address the interoperability and privacy issues. However, other challenges remain, in particular, scalability, usability, and accessibility as core technical challenges. The paper focuses on ensuring the integrity of the health record with context-based Merkle tree (CBMT) through temporal shadow. In this system, two ledgers were used to ensure the integrity of eHealth records like general public ledger (GPL) and personalized micro ledger (PML). The context-based Merkle tree (CBMT) is used to aggregates all the transactions at a particular time. The context means it depends on time, location, and identity. This is ensured without the help of a third party.
Article Preview
Top

Introduction

The eHealth is electronic health information, health services provided digitally. The Electronic Health Record (EHR) system saves millions of patient's life by giving quality treatment at less cost (Szabo, 1997). Each patient has many health care providers like a general doctor, family doctor, specialist, so forth. Moreover, each eHealth record shared among different health care providers for treatment and research purposes. If a patient's information not available on time, then the death rate increases. Nowadays, information technology is used in healthcare to improve medical services to reduce costs. Security and trust are the most critical factor in the healthcare industry. Another issue is inconsistency and incompleteness, where multiple vendors maintain the same patient record and result in errors.

The author introduced the National level healthcare framework, which used to store the eHealth record in the cloud. The main benefit of storing the eHealth record in the cloud allows the authenticated user to access the eHealth record from anywhere and at any time (Hendrick et al., 2013). The patient's health information monitored by the medical equipment, which is attached to the sensor. Each sensor gathered the health data and automatically stored in the cloud that medical professional can access from anywhere and at any time (Rolim et al., 2019).

The author proposed the national-level electronic eHealth record system and rural level healthcare system, deployed the health data in the cloud. So it is easy to give excellent patient care, also saves time and cost. An only authenticated user can access the health data. It ensures the security, privacy, and confidentiality of the health data (Gul et al., 2012). The success of the Health Information Exchange is achieved by cloud computing. However, it still has been a challenge to provide a data-sharing service. The patient should share the authentication privilege to the provider so that that provider can access the health data (Grozev & Buyya, 2012).

The health information is sensitive information that needs to protect from a malicious user. The existing frameworks used different encryption techniques to secure the eHealth record. Each framework stored the eHealth record in the cloud and discussed the possible security issues in the cloud to store the eHealth record (Charanya et al., 2013).

In terms of security, the centralized cloud has many drawbacks. There is a possibility of changing the health data in the centralized cloud, to overcome this challenge, a decentralized network used to store the eHealth record. Charanya and Aramudhan (2016) discussed the different access control issues in cloud computing and how blockchain overcomes the security challenges in the cloud. The blockchain is a distributed network; it is a growing list of records, allows storing the data securely in a distributed network (Nakamoto, 2008). The patient record created and stored in the digital network, which shared across thousands of nodes. Benet (2014) discussed storing health information in blockchain leads to the high cost and vast space, which overcome by storing the eHealth record in Interplanetary File Systems(IPFS). The IPFS generates the content address for the eHealth record. The generated content address is an input to the blockchain. The patient visits a different healthcare provider; each provider manages its database. With the help of blockchain, secure distribution of the eHealth records maintained. The author clearly explained how to secure the eHealth record with the help of the Merkle tree (Shaan, 2017).

The patient's ehealth record maintained in different ways, like JPEG, video, and text. All the different formats were supported by blockchain and deployed in the distributed network. The proposed work focuses on the text file. It allows us to store the encrypted eHealth record in the cloud. However, it is accessible by any health providers and at any time by using blockchain.

Complete Article List

Search this Journal:
Reset
Volume 19: 1 Issue (2024)
Volume 18: 1 Issue (2023)
Volume 17: 4 Issues (2022): 1 Released, 3 Forthcoming
Volume 16: 4 Issues (2021)
Volume 15: 4 Issues (2020)
Volume 14: 4 Issues (2019)
Volume 13: 4 Issues (2018)
Volume 12: 4 Issues (2017)
Volume 11: 4 Issues (2016)
Volume 10: 4 Issues (2015)
Volume 9: 4 Issues (2014)
Volume 8: 4 Issues (2013)
Volume 7: 4 Issues (2012)
Volume 6: 4 Issues (2011)
Volume 5: 4 Issues (2010)
Volume 4: 4 Issues (2009)
Volume 3: 4 Issues (2008)
Volume 2: 4 Issues (2007)
Volume 1: 4 Issues (2006)
View Complete Journal Contents Listing