BlockHR - A blockchain-based healthcare records management framework: Performance evaluation and comparison with client/server architecture

Leila Ismail, Huned Materwala, Youssef Sharaf

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Over the last decade, the management of healthcare records has been revolutionized due to the need for accurate and cost-efficient patient-centric care alongside the technological advances. Currently, Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are managed using a client-server architecture by which healthcare providers retain the data stewardship. However, this approach suffers from security and privacy issues, a single point of failure, data fragmentation and vulnerability. The data replication, immutability, transparency, security and privacy features of blockchain have a promising future in the healthcare domain addressing the existing issues. In this paper, we propose BlockHR, a healthcare records management framework for healthcare providers and patients enabling better prognosis/diagnosis and follow-up. We analyze the effectiveness of BlockHR in providing security and privacy compared to the client-server approach. We also evaluate the performance of BlockHR versus the client-server approach. Our experimental results demonstrate that client-server approach takes 2.6 times less execution time for data write operation compared to BlockHR. The data retrieval for BlockHR is 20 times faster compared to the client-server approach. We analyze the impact of increasing number of medical records in our evaluation.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2020 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications, ISNCC 2020
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
ISBN (Electronic)9781728156286
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 20 2020
Event2020 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications, ISNCC 2020 - Montreal, Canada
Duration: Oct 20 2020Oct 22 2020

Publication series

Name2020 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications, ISNCC 2020

Conference

Conference2020 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications, ISNCC 2020
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period10/20/2010/22/20

Keywords

  • Blockchain
  • Client-server architecture
  • Data security
  • Health data analytics
  • Healthcare data management
  • Patient privacy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Instrumentation
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
  • Control and Optimization

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