Efficient patient-centric EMR sharing block tree

2025-04-29

AI Summary

To address scalability bottlenecks in blockchain-based electronic medical record (EMR) systems—including low throughput, high upload latency, and insufficient patient engagement—this paper proposes a patient-centric, high-efficiency EMR sharing framework. Methodologically, it introduces (1) MedBlockTree, a novel multi-branch blocktree structure leveraging chameleon hash functions to generate controllable-collision blocks, thereby overcoming the limitations of linear-chain topologies; and (2) EnhancedPro, a consensus algorithm ensuring consistency and security under concurrent multi-branch write operations. Experimental evaluation on a distributed simulation platform demonstrates that the system achieves ν·n-fold higher throughput than conventional blockchain-based EMR systems. It significantly outperforms baseline approaches across four key dimensions: number of branches, network scale, tolerance to hash collision rate, and network latency. The framework thus substantially enhances patient-side responsiveness and overall system scalability.

Technology Category

• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Scalability, Parallel & Distributed Systems
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Blockchains and distributed ledgers
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Efficiency and scalability of Web search engines

Abstract

Flexible sharing of electronic medical records (EMRs) is an urgent need in healthcare, as fragmented storage creates EMR management complexity for both practitioners and patients. Blockchain has emerged as a promising solution to address the limitations of centralized EMR systems regarding interoperability, data ownership, and trust concerns. Whilst its healthcare implementation continues to face scalability challenges, particularly in uploading lag time as EMR volumes increase. In this paper, we describe the design of a novel blockchain-based data structure, MedBlockTree, which aims to solve the scalability issue in blockchain-based EMR systems, particularly low block throughput and patient awareness. MedBlockTree leverages a chameleon hash function to generate collision blocks for existing patients and expand a single chain into a growing block tree with $n$ branches that are capable of processing $n$ new blocks in a single consensus round. We also introduce the EnhancedPro consensus algorithm to manage multiple branches and maintain network consistency. Our comprehensive simulation evaluates performance across four dimensions: branch number, worker number, collision rate, and network latency. Comparative analysis against a traditional blockchain-based EMR system demonstrates outstanding throughput improvements across all dimensions, achieving processing speeds $ ucdot n$ times faster than conventional approaches.

Problem

• Addresses scalability issues in blockchain EMR systems
• Improves block throughput and patient awareness
• Enhances EMR sharing efficiency and flexibility

Innovation

• MedBlockTree uses chameleon hash for scalability
• EnhancedPro consensus manages multiple branches efficiently
• Block tree structure enables parallel block processing