Healthcare and Fitness Data Management Using the IoT-Based Blockchain Platform

J Healthc Eng. 2021 Jul 9:2021:9978863. doi: 10.1155/2021/9978863. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Because of the availability of more than an actor and a wireless component among e-health applications, providing more security and safety is expected. Moreover, ensuring data confidentiality within different services becomes a key requirement. In this paper, we propose to collect data from health and fitness smart devices deployed in connection with the proposed IoT blockchain platform. The use of these devices helps us in extracting an amount of highly valuable heath data that are filtered, analyzed, and stored in electronic health records (EHRs). Different actors of the platform, coaches, patients, and doctors, collaborate to provide an on-time diagnosis and treatment for various diseases in an easy and cost-effective way. Our main purpose is to provide a distributed, secure, and authorized access to these sensitive data using the Ethereum blockchain technology. We have designed an integrated low-powered IoT blockchain platform for a healthcare application to store and review EHRs. This architecture, based on the blockchain Ethereum, includes a web and mobile application allowing the patient as well as the medical and paramedical staff to have a secure access to health information. The Ethereum node is implemented on an embedded platform, which should provide an efficient, flexible, and secure system despite the limited resources and low power consumption of the multiprocessor platform.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Retracted Publication

MeSH terms

  • Blockchain*
  • Confidentiality
  • Data Management
  • Delivery of Health Care
  • Electronic Health Records
  • Humans