Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Oct 18, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Oct 25, 2018 - Nov 29, 2018
Date Accepted: Dec 25, 2018
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Private blockchain network-based personal health record management: a feasibility study
ABSTRACT
Background:
There are many perspectives on the advantages of introducing blockchain in the medical field, but there are no published feasibility studies to regarding the storage, propagation, and management of personal health records (PHRs) using blockchain technology.
Objective:
The purpose of this study was to investigate the usefulness of blockchain in the medical field in relation to transactions with and propagation of PHRs in a private blockchain.
Methods:
We constructed a private blockchain network using Ethereum version 1.8.4 and conducted verification though de-identified PHRs of 300 patients. The private blockchain network consisted of one hospital node and 300 patient nodes. In order to verify the effectiveness of blockchain-based PHR management, one PHR was loaded in a transaction between the hospital and patient nodes and propagated to the whole network. We obtained and analyzed the time and gas required for data transaction and propagation on the blockchain network. For reproducibility, these processes were repeated 100 times.
Results:
Of 300 patient records, 74 (24.7%) were not loaded in the private blockchain due to the data block size of the transaction block. The remaining 226 individual health records were classified into groups A (80 patients with outpatient visit data less than 1-year-old), B (84 patients with outpatient data from between 1 and 3 years before data collection), and C (62 patients with outpatient data 3 to 5 years old) according to their outpatient record period. According to mean transaction time in the blockchain, C (128.7 seconds) had the shortest time, followed by A (132.2 seconds) and C (159.0 seconds). Mean propagation times for groups A, B, and C was, 1494.2 seconds, 2138.9 seconds, and 4111.4 seconds, respectively; mean file sizes were 5.6 KB, 18.6 KB, and 45.38 KB, respectively. The mean gas consumption values were 1,900,767; 4,224,341; and 4,112,784 for groups A, B, and C, respectively.
Conclusions:
This study confirms that it is possible to exchange PHR data in a private blockchain network. However, to develop a blockchain-based PHR platform that can be used in real practice, many improvements are required, including in terms of data size, personal information protection, and reduced operating costs.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.