Federated Electronic Health Records Using a Blockchain

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Information Security
• Digital Health

Background:

• Existing electronic health records are often siloed across primary and secondary care.
• Sharing sensitive mental health data securely between systems presents significant challenges.
• The need for a unified, real-time view of patient information for clinicians is critical.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate a Federated Electronic Health Record (FEHR) system for mental health practitioners in Norway.
• To design a secure architecture for accessing and aggregating patient data from heterogeneous sources.
• To ensure patient data privacy and security through encrypted tokens and domain-specific access controls.

Main Methods:

• The Valkyrie project utilizes an architecture with interlinked Security Domains, each with unique cryptographic keys.
• Encrypted Tokens are generated for each healthcare event, containing metadata, clinical codes, and locators to source systems.
• Tokens are processed sequentially through Security Domains, with each domain accessing only necessary information for its function.

Main Results:

• The Valkyrie system enables real-time retrieval and viewing of patient records from diverse source systems (ISO13606- and openEHR-based).
• A secure "Valkyrie Session" provides temporary access to aggregated patient data.
• Data accessed during a session is automatically destroyed upon session termination, enhancing privacy.

Conclusions:

• The Valkyrie project successfully demonstrates a secure and privacy-preserving method for federated electronic health records in mental healthcare.
• The architecture ensures that sensitive patient information is accessed securely and only for the duration required.
• This approach offers a scalable solution for integrating disparate health data sources for improved clinical decision-making.