Blockchain Applied to IoT Medical Devices for Secure Patient Monitoring

Abstract

In recent years, Internet of Things (IoT) devices have become more and more integrated into our daily lives to the point that, this past year (2018), the number of IoT-connected devices has surpassed the number of mobile devices used. A prevalent use of IoT technology is in the healthcare field, such as the use of Implantable and Wearable Medical Devices (IWMDs) for remote patient monitoring and therapeutic applications. As these devices gain functional complexity and handle more private and sensitive data, there grows a need to address security and data privacy concerns. One proposed way to handle these security issues is by integrating blockchain technology to provide a secure and decentralized way of validating data sent from medical devices in the form of transactions that can be verified through the consensus of all parties involved. This paper first goes into detail as to how the integration of blockchain technology and IoT medical devices can help solve some of these security issues, then provides an architectural model for incorporating blockchain specifically with IWMDs, and finally implements a solution through the use of blockchain-based “smart contracts” to help securely analyze and validate sensor data as well as record these events to the blockchain. This project uses IBM’s and Linux’s Hyperledger project to provide the blockchain framework.