Integrated Cloud and Blockchain Framework: A Secure Solution for Healthcare Data Management

Modern healthcare organizations face multiple challenges attempting to protect and manage patients’ information as the number of electronic health records and cyber threats continue to rise. Although modern centralized data storage systems provide improved scalability and flexibility in data storage and organizational access, such systems remain at risks to hackers, Innovative and sneaky ways, and overall manipulation. This research also proposes a solution that integrates the issues above to bring forth the concept of utilizing both cloud computing and blockchain technologies to address these challenges. To this end, the proposed framework is known as the Blockchain-Enhanced Cloud Data Management System (BC-CDMS), where cloud computing is employed as the main data storage model and where blockchain provides decentralized, immutable and transparent data safeguards. Also, access control policies are implemented through smart contracts, while Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) improves system security. The performance test and the experts’ assessments of the system showed that the throughput rate as well as the latency of the system were sufficiently high and some of the most important attributes of security were sufficiently developed in order for the system to be considered capable of handling large volumes of healthcare data. This research also analyses how several functionaries of the BC-CDMS model can improve data secrecy, protect data from unauthorized accesses, and maintain legal requirements as the HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulation. The research presents a flexible, secure architecture with great potential to transform the current healthcare data environment through an integration of the best features of cloud computing and blockchain.