Leveraging Blockchain-Based Electronic Health Record Systems in Healthcare 4.0

Abstract

Digitalization has become a crucial part of healthcare 4.0 by transforming systems such as electronic health records (EHR), electronic medical records (EMR), and electronic personal medical records (ePHR). Healthcare 4.0 is derived from industry 4.0 and aims to enhance collaboration, virtualization, coherence, and convergence, which helps transform modern healthcare into more personalized and predictive. Healthcare 4.0 also aims to develop digital enablers which will support coordination among various stakeholders and seamless information flow in the patient journey towards wellbeing. These systems enhance patient care through the timely sharing of patient data across different providers globally. Timely sharing helps, but it also makes the electronic system vulnerable to alteration and breaches. In healthcare, blockchain application is widely used in various areas, such as health information exchange, pharmaceutical counterfeit, clinical trials, health supply chain management, patient data management, insurance claims, and product recall in case of adverse events. This research paper aims to identify how blockchain technology can help enhance the privacy and security of electronic health record systems. This paper discusses various blockchain-based systems, which provide a more efficient and secure option than client-server architecture-based traditional EHR systems.