Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems

Alyssa Donawa; Inema Orukari; Corey E. Baker

doi:10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101

Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems

Alyssa Donawa, Inema Orukari, Corey E. Baker

Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have improved many aspects of healthcare and allowed for easier patient management for medical providers. Blockchains have been proposed as a promising solution for supporting Electronic Health Records (EHRs), but have also been linked to scalability concerns about supporting real-world healthcare systems. This paper quantifies the scalability issues and bottlenecks related to current blockchains and puts into perspective the limitations blockchains have with supporting healthcare systems. Particularly we show that well known blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and IOTA cannot support transactions of a large scale hospital system such as the University of Kentucky HealthCare system and leave over 7.5M unsealed transactions per day. We then discuss how bottlenecks of blockchains can be relieved with sidechains, enabling well-known blockchains to support even larger hospital systems of over 30M transactions per day. We then introduce the Patient-Healthchain architecture to provide future direction on how scaling blockchains for EHR systems with sidechains can be achieved.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019
Editors	Satyajit Chakrabarti, Himadri Nath Saha
Pages	550-556
Number of pages	7
ISBN (Electronic)	9781728138855
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101
State	Published - Oct 2019
Event	10th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019 - New York City, United States Duration: Oct 10 2019 → Oct 12 2019

Publication series

Name	2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019

Conference

Conference	10th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019
Country/Territory	United States
City	New York City
Period	10/10/19 → 10/12/19

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 IEEE.

Keywords

Access Control Lists
Blockchain
Distributed Systems
Electronic Health Records (EHRs)
Electronic Medical Records (EMRs)
Healthcare
Scalability
Sidechain
Telehealth

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Computer Science Applications
Computer Networks and Communications
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Artificial Intelligence

Access to Document

10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101

Cite this

Donawa, A., Orukari, I., & Baker, C. E. (2019). Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems. In S. Chakrabarti, & H. N. Saha (Eds.), 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019 (pp. 550-556). Article 8993101 (2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019). https://doi.org/10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101

Donawa, Alyssa ; Orukari, Inema ; Baker, Corey E. / Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems. 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019. editor / Satyajit Chakrabarti ; Himadri Nath Saha. 2019. pp. 550-556 (2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019).

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title = "Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems",

abstract = "Electronic Health Records (EHRs) have improved many aspects of healthcare and allowed for easier patient management for medical providers. Blockchains have been proposed as a promising solution for supporting Electronic Health Records (EHRs), but have also been linked to scalability concerns about supporting real-world healthcare systems. This paper quantifies the scalability issues and bottlenecks related to current blockchains and puts into perspective the limitations blockchains have with supporting healthcare systems. Particularly we show that well known blockchains such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and IOTA cannot support transactions of a large scale hospital system such as the University of Kentucky HealthCare system and leave over 7.5M unsealed transactions per day. We then discuss how bottlenecks of blockchains can be relieved with sidechains, enabling well-known blockchains to support even larger hospital systems of over 30M transactions per day. We then introduce the Patient-Healthchain architecture to provide future direction on how scaling blockchains for EHR systems with sidechains can be achieved.",

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Donawa, A, Orukari, I & Baker, CE 2019, Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems. in S Chakrabarti & HN Saha (eds), 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019., 8993101, 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019, pp. 550-556, 10th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019, New York City, United States, 10/10/19. https://doi.org/10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101

Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems. / Donawa, Alyssa; Orukari, Inema; Baker, Corey E.
2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019. ed. / Satyajit Chakrabarti; Himadri Nath Saha. 2019. p. 550-556 8993101 (2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › peer-review

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Donawa A, Orukari I, Baker CE. Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems. In Chakrabarti S, Saha HN, editors, 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019. 2019. p. 550-556. 8993101. (2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference, UEMCON 2019). doi: 10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993101

Scaling Blockchains to Support Electronic Health Records for Hospital Systems

Abstract

Publication series

Conference

Bibliographical note

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

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Cite this