BlockHR: A Blockchain-based Framework for Health Records Management

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have become a popular method to store and manage patients' data in hospitals. Sharing these records make the current healthcare system more accurate and cost-efficient. Currently, EHRs are stored using the client-server architecture allowing the hospitals or a cloud service provider to retain the stewardship of the patients' data. In addition, the records of a patient are scattered among different hospitals using heterogeneous databases. Consequently, patients face difficulties to construct a cohesive view of their medical data history to focus on the details of their healthcare. The replication mechanism and security features of the blockchain has a promising future in the healthcare domain presenting solutions to the complexity, confidentiality, integrity, interoperability, and privacy issues of the current client-server architecture-based EHRs management system. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based framework for health records management (BlockHR); a medical support system for medical professionals for better prognosis/diagnosis and follow-up on patients. BlockHR incorporates tools for patients to upload medical and lifestyle data used to predict their risk of developing chronic diseases.