A blockchain based solution for medication anti-counterfeiting and traceability

Abstract

Medication quality and safety are crucial to the health of the public. Responding to the urgent need for medication information provenance and anti-counterfeiting, this study proposes a blockchain based method for medication information storage, inquiry, and anti-counterfeiting along a medication supply chain. Leveraging the features of decentralization, tamper-proof, traceability, and participative node maintenance of blockchain technology, the proposed method can assure the transparency and openness of medication supply chains. An access control policy model based on smart contract is designed to prevent medication information from being altered or disclosed at nodes of the blockchain. In addition, a point-accumulation upgrade/downgrade mechanism is introduced to improve the consensus mechanism. The proposed solution eliminates the needs for centralized institutions and third-party organizations, and provides a full record of the medication circulation process. Our simulation results show that efficiency and security are enhanced by the improved consensus algorithm and access control mechanism. As a result, our method can render high level of security and privacy protection that is critical to the integrity of a medication information management system.