Evaluating the Impact of Blockchain Models for Secure and Trustworthy Electronic Healthcare Records

Mohammad Zarour,Rajeev Kumar,Raees Ahmad Khan,Mohd Faizan,Mamdouh Alenezi,Alka Agrawal,Amal Krishna Sarkar,Md Tarique Jamal Ansari

doi:10.1109/access.2020.3019829

Abstract

Blockchain technology is among the most significant developments and revolutionary innovations of the Information Technology industry. It corners a crucial space in the present digital era and has already made significant differences in human life. Moreover, it is anticipated that the Blockchain technology will improvise the existing IT facilities in the next several years in many domains. Recent technological developments are allowing for a major advancement in Healthcare sectors. Information security and accessibility are critical considerations for the integration and communication with Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) systems when sharing private medical information. In this context, selecting the most effective blockchain model for secure and trustworthy EHRs in the healthcare sector requires an accurate mechanism for evaluating the impact of different available blockchain models for its features. The present study uses a scientifically proven approach for evaluating the impact of blockchain technology and provides a novel idea and path to the future researchers. This research analysis garnered the feedback of 56 domain experts in the healthcare management for assessing the impact of different blockchain models. To eliminate the ambiguities that arose due to multiple opinions of these experts and for the externalization and organization of information about the selection context of the blockchain model, the study used a decision model. Fuzzy Analytic Analytical Network Process (F-ANP) method was used to calculate the weights of the criteria as well as the Fuzzy-Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) technique was used to evaluate the effect of alternative solutions. Further, the results obtained through this empirical investigation will be an instrumental reference for choosing the most appropriate Blockchain model for maintaining breach-free EHRs.

Highlights

Nowadays several countries are experiencing massive growth in the healthcare challenges, accessibility to primary physicians or practitioners has become more challenging for patients
The impact evaluation of blockchain technology for securing electronic healthcare records with the help of fuzzy-Analytic Network Process (ANP)-TOPSIS has been measured by using the Equations (1)–(20) as follows: By using the standardized Saaty scale which can be seen in Table 1 as well as using Equations (1)–(9), we transformed the linguistic-terms into quantitative values and afterwards aggregated triangular fuzzy numeric (TFN) values
The proposed research uses an integrated fuzzy-ANPTOPSIS method to evaluate the impact of blockchain technology models for securing electronic healthcare records

Summary

Introduction

Nowadays several countries are experiencing massive growth in the healthcare challenges, accessibility to primary physicians or practitioners has become more challenging for patients. Taking into consideration the word ‘‘blockchain,’’ it’s becoming increasingly apparent that such a technology is significant and indispensable in the. A blockchain is considered as a decentralized record database or a distributed ledger of all transaction processing or electronic activities that have been conducted and exchanged between the involved parties. A blockchain includes a definite and provable documentation of each transaction that has ever been made [2], [3]. A transaction may be carried out in a decentralized manner using blockchain technology. Blockchain can reduce costs considerably as well as increase performance [4]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion