Privacy-Conflict Resolution for Integrating Personal and Electronic Health Records in Blockchain-Based Systems

Abstract

Integrating personal health records (PHRs) and electronic health records (EHRs) facilitates the provision of novel services to individuals, researchers, and healthcare practitioners. Simultaneously, integrating healthcare data leads to complexities arising from the structural and semantic heterogeneity within the data. The subject of healthcare data evokes strong emotions due to concerns surrounding privacy breaches. Blockchain technology is employed to address the issue of patient data privacy in inter-organizational processes, as it facilitates patient data ownership and promotes transparency in its usage. At the same time, blockchain technology creates new challenges for e-healthcare systems, such as data privacy, observability, and online enforceabil-ity. This article proposes designing and formalizing automatic conflict resolution techniques in decentralized e-healthcare systems. The present study expounds upon our concepts by employing a running case study centered around preventive and personalized healthcare domains.