Enhancement of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Security in Private Networks with Blockchains
Osama M. Abd El-Hamed, Fathi E. Abd El‐Samie, Saied M. Abd El‐atty, Ezz El‐Din Hemdan, Wael Maged Badawy · 2023
In this paper, we propose a system for improving the security of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) in private networks using Blockchain technology. There are currently problems with data integrity in database systems that contain health records. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are frequently used by amateur organizations to create internal frameworks, which might result in data manipulation in an improper way and unauthorized access. We put up a practical solution for this issue that makes use of Blockchain immutability. Our system depends on HTML forms and NodeJS to store patient-related records in a MySQL database. However, using the secure hashing SHA-256, we store the hash values of the records in blocks rather than the actual records themselves. This method ensures that any unauthorized alterations in the records may be quickly identified by comparing the stored hash value with the actual hash of the data that is obtained from the database. Our system performance analysis, which shows acceptable latency, was done. The Blockchain runs in the background without having a substantial influence on speed, thus the database continues to run quickly. Our system also saves money, because it is designed to be used with a user-programmed Blockchain within private networks. It is offered at no additional cost, and is primarily made to verify data accuracy. For private networks depending on EMR systems, our suggested solution provides improved security, effective performance, and affordability as compared to existing approaches and frameworks.