PRIVACY AWARE AND INTEROPERABLE PATIENT DATA STORAGE AND SEARCHING USING BLOCKCHAIN

Abstract

Healthcare data are highly sensitive data it must be managed with strict security and reliability. Increasing concerns regarding personal health continue to create major challenges for the healthcare sector, particularly within Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems. Because medical events may occur across different locations, patient information often becomes fragmented among multiple healthcare providers. As a result, patients frequently lose access to their historical records, and healthcare institutions struggle with issues related to interoperability, searching in blockchain ledgers, and secure data storage. To address these challenges, this paper proposes "HealthSearchin" breadcrumb searching mechanism and a conceptual single system architecture for Electronic Health Records (EHRs) using blockchain technology. The system integrates encrypted cloud storage with a permissioned blockchain, specifically Hyperledger Fabric, which is partitioned into specialized clusters to enhance scalability and privacy. Performance evaluation demonstrates that the system achieves a throughput of approximately 600 transactions per second with an optimal block size of 1MB, and an average block creation time of 20ms for patient registration. Moreover, the breadcrumb search time grows gradually from approximately 3ms to 24ms as the number of matched documents increases from 50 to 1,200.  The cluster-based architecture, coupled with an indexed-based "breadcrumb" search mechanism, significantly improves data retrieval efficiency and system scalability. These testing results confirm that the proposed framework is a practical and effective solution for healthcare contexts, successfully addressing critical issues of storage, interoperability, and efficient data retrieval.