TY - JOUR
T1 - Blockchain paradigm for healthcare
T2 - Performance evaluation
AU - Ismail, Leila
AU - Materwala, Huned
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: Thanks to the Emirates Center for Energy and Environment Research of the United Arab Emirates University for supporting this work (Grant G00003304).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors.
PY - 2020/8
Y1 - 2020/8
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Artificial intelligence
KW - Blockchain
KW - Client/server
KW - Electronic health records
KW - Health information management
KW - Privacy
KW - Security
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U2 - 10.3390/SYM12081200
DO - 10.3390/SYM12081200
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85089671970
SN - 2073-8994
VL - 12
JO - Symmetry
JF - Symmetry
IS - 8
M1 - 1200
ER -