17 - Interpolation-based reversible data hiding with blockchain for secure e-healthcare systems

Abstract

With drastic development encountered in networked infrastructure, the Internet has entered into almost every sector. In this regard, a typical e-healthcare system needs effective storage and management of electronic patient record (EPR), which has to be securely shared among different clinical centers. The main challenges in achieving the security of medical data include verifying the genuineness of the data, protecting it from vulnerable attacks, and tracking the source of an attack. To figure out these problems, a novel framework called the blockchain-based authenticity of healthcare data for mediclaim (BAHDM) is proposed, by combining the interpolation-based reversible data hiding (IRDH) technique with blockchain technology. The objectives of the proposed framework are to authenticate EPR using the blockchain network and to provide higher embedding capacity without compromising the visual quality of stego medical image. At first, the EPR is embedded into medical images to generate the stego medical images. The obtained PSNR values prove that the EPR is unnoticeable to human eyes, making it invulnerable to attacks. Then, the crypto hash values of EPR-embedded stego medical images are saved in blockchain so that they can be traced and verified. Thus, the combination of reversible data hiding with blockchain offers security in terms of imperceptibility, integrity, and authenticity.