IEEE Access (Jan 2022)
A Blockchain Based System for Healthcare Digital Twin
Abstract
Digital Twin (DT) is an emerging technology that replicates any physical phenomenon from a physical space to a digital space in congruence with the physical state. However, devising a Healthcare DT model for patient care is seen as a challenging task as the lack of adequate data collection structure. There are also security and privacy concerns as healthcare data is very sensitive and can be used in malicious ways. Because of these current research gaps, the proper way of acquiring the structured data and managing them in a secure way is very important. In this article, we present a mathematical data model to accumulate the patient relevant data in a structured and predefined way with proper delineation. Additionally, the provided data model is described in harmony with real life contexts. Then, we have used the patient centric mathematical data model to formally define the semantic and scope of our proposed Healthcare Digital Twin (HDT) system based on Blockchain. Accordingly, the proposed system is described with all the key components as well as with detailed protocol flows and an analysis of its different aspects. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed model with a critical comparison with other relevant research works have been provided.
Keywords