Accelerating Healthcare Data Access: A Blockchain and Decentralized Indexing Approach

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel decentralized healthcare data management framework that distinctly integrates blockchain, IPFS, and The Graph protocol to address long‐standing challenges related to secure data storage, efficient retrieval, scalability, and patient‐centric control in medical systems. Although the combination of blockchain and IPFS has become relatively standard for decentralized storage and security, our work introduces a key innovation by incorporating The Graph protocol to enable real‐time, decentralized indexing and querying of medical records—a capability that is critically lacking in many current approaches. By linking encrypted healthcare data stored in IPFS with blockchain‐based smart contracts via cryptographic hashes, the system ensures tamper‐proof integrity, privacy preservation, and access traceability. What sets our architecture apart is the use of subgraph‐based GraphQL APIs through The Graph, which allows seamless and structured data discovery without compromising decentralization. Performance evaluations demonstrate significant improvements, including reduced latency, higher query speed, and enhanced throughput when compared to conventional blockchain–IPFS architectures. Additionally, the framework empowers patients with data ownership and fine‐grained access control while promoting interoperability across decentralized applications. This integrated approach meaningfully advances the state of the art by bridging decentralized storage with intelligent data querying, paving the way for the next generation of secure, responsive, and scalable digital healthcare ecosystems.