Toward Patient-Centric Healthcare Systems: Key Requirements and Framework for Personal Health Records Based on Blockchain Technology

Abstract

Healthcare data are considered sensitive and confidential, and storing these sensitive data in traditional (i.e., centralized) databases may expose risks, such as penetration or data leaks. Furthermore, patients may have incomplete health records since they visit various healthcare centers and leave their data scattered in different places. One solution to resolve these problems and permit patients to own their records is a decentralized personal health record (PHR); this can be achieved through decentralization and distribution systems, which are fundamental attributes of blockchain technology. Additionally, the requirements for this solution should be identified to provide practical solutions for stakeholders. This study aims to identify the key requirements for PHRs. A design science methodology was utilized to meet the study objectives, and thirteen healthcare experts were interviewed to elicit the requirements and the previous studies. Thirty-three requirements are defined, and based on these, high- and low-level architectures are developed and explained. The result illustrates that the developed solution-based Hyperledger Fabric framework is a promising method for the achievement of PHRs that guarantee security aspects, such as integrity, confidentiality, privacy, traceability, and access control.

Keywords

• access control
• blockchain technology
• data owner
• identity management
• personal health records