Blockchain paradigm for healthcare: Performance evaluation

Abstract

Electronic health records (EHRs) have become a popular method to store and manage patients' data in hospitals. Sharing these records makes the current healthcare data management system more accurate and cost-efficient. Currently, EHRs are stored using the client/server architecture by which each hospital retains the stewardship of the patients' data. The records of a patient are scattered among different hospitals using heterogeneous database servers. These limitations constitute a burden towards a personalized healthcare, when it comes to offering a cohesive view and a shared, secure and private access to patients' health history for multiple allied professionals and the patients. The data availability, privacy and security characteristics of the blockchain have a propitious future in the healthcare presenting solutions to the complexity, confidentiality, integrity, interoperability and privacy issues of the current client/server architecture-based EHR management system. This paper analyzes and compares the performance of the blockchain and the client/server paradigms. The results reveal that notable performance can be achieved using blockchain in a patient-centric approach. In addition, the immutable and valid patients' data in the blockchain can aid allied health professionals in better prognosis and diagnosis support through machine learning and artificial intelligence.