A Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Framework Using Hyperledger Fabric

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Cybersecurity
• Distributed Ledger Technology

Background:

• Current electronic health record (EHR) management systems face significant security risks during health information exchange.
• Existing approaches are vulnerable to common security attack vectors, potentially compromising sensitive medical record storage.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present PREHEALTH, a novel privacy-preserving EHR management solution.
• To leverage distributed ledger technology and Identity Mixer (Idemix) for secure and anonymous EHR handling.

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a proof-of-concept using Hyperledger Fabric's permissioned blockchain framework.
• Integration of Identity Mixer (Idemix) for robust identity management and privacy preservation.
• Development of a decentralized approach for EHR storage and exchange.

Main Results:

• The PREHEALTH solution effectively stores patient records while ensuring anonymity and unlinkability.
• Experimental evaluations confirm the scheme's efficiency and feasibility for real-world deployment.
• Demonstrated enhanced security against common attack vectors in EHR management.

Conclusions:

• Blockchain-based solutions offer a secure and decentralized alternative for EHR management.
• PREHEALTH provides a viable and efficient method for privacy-preserving health information exchange.
• The proposed system is suitable for large-scale adoption in healthcare settings.