BLOCKCHAIN-ENABLED SECURE MEDICAL DATA COMPRESSION AND SHARING FRAMEWORK

Abstract

The digital transformation of healthcare, driven by the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), has intensified the need for secure, efficient and interoperable medical data management. This study develops and evaluates a secure system that combines blockchain technology, AES encryption, and zlib compression to enable decentralized, tamper-proof sharing of electronic health records (EHRs) while optimizing storage and ensuring data integrity. The system was implemented as a Flask-based web application and tested using diverse medical file types (TXT, PDF, DICOM, JPG/PNG), measuring compression ratios, encryption/decryption speed, and blockchain hash performance. The results demonstrated that text files achieved the highest compression ratio (~6.4), while encryption and decryption times remained fast and scaled linearly with file size. Blockchain hashing proved efficient (5–13 ms), highlighting the system’s suitability for real-time healthcare environments. The integrated approach effectively addressed core issues in current healthcare data systems such as inefficient storage, poor interoperability, and data security vulnerabilities, especially in managing structured and semi-structured clinical data. It can be concluded from the study that blockchain-based systems can significantly improve the security, scalability, and reliability of healthcare data exchange. The system ensures confidentiality, authenticity, and integrity of patient records while promoting seamless data access among authorized entities. Despite its effectiveness, challenges such as processing overhead and blockchain scalability were noted, suggesting a need for further optimization. Recommendations include the adoption of blockchain-integrated data sharing platforms by healthcare institutions to enhance traceability and trust. File compression should be prioritized for large textual records to reduce bandwidth and storage costs. Future improvements may incorporate biometric authentication for enhanced access control. Additionally, collaboration between government agencies, hospitals, and tech providers is essential to establish regulatory standards for blockchain deployment in health data management.