Convergence Towards Blockchain-Based Patient Health Record and Sharing System: Emerging Issues and Challenges

The traditional technologies and digital systems of managing and maintaining data are inherently prone to manipulation at various levels. Ensuring the anonymity of the patient's identity, the safety of the medical records, and preventing the patient data from accidental and intended manipulations have been the industry's biggest challenges for decades. Failing to control the integrity of the Patient Health Records (PHRs) and Medical Health Records (MHRs) in the Healthcare Data Management System (HDMS)/ Healthcare Information System (HIS) may create challenges in identifying, diagnosing, and treating the disease and puts the patient at a greater risk. The frequency of healthcare data breaches, the magnitude of compromised records, and the financial impact rapidly increase with time. This chapter systematically and critically reviews the issues and challenges faced by various healthcare stakeholders in PHRs/MHRs-based HDMS/HIS systems. Blockchain powered patient health record and sharing schemes can be used to ensure the integrity and safety of healthcare data and share data among various healthcare ecosystem stakeholders using smart contracts to promote transparency, tamper-proofing, and consented access to data in distributed multi-stakeholder environment. This chapter highlights the need for post-quantum cryptography and recommendations for future improvements in blockchain-based patient health records and sharing system.