Blockchain-based model for authentication, authorization, and immutability of healthcare data in the referrals process

Abstract

The healthcare industry is continuously reforming and adopting innovative technologies that allow the digitalization of health information and automation of clinical processes. Some of the crucial requirements in these adaptations and implementations are interoperability across different departments and the security of a patient's sensitive data, mainly when data exchange. The provisioning of confidentiality, integrity, consistency of data and data quality management is vital to ensure the best healthcare service delivery. The blockchain technology is a revolutionary invention, which ensures data integrity and confidentiality inside any system. The blockchain technology with application layers built on it, promise a mechanism that provides data integrity and privacy, most privacy, and security in healthcare services. In this paper, we propose an e-referrals model with the main focus on supporting authentication and authorization of entities in the process of issuing referrals to provide data integrity and confidentiality. The proposed model offers a framework for managing patients' referral data between doctors on the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of healthcare.