Blockchain-Enabled Secure Data Sharing Architecture for Smart Healthcare Environments

Abstract

The rapid advancement of smart healthcare systems has transformed traditional medical services into intelligent, interconnected environments capable of real-time patient monitoring, remote diagnostics, and automated clinical decision-making. However, the continuous exchange of sensitive medical data among healthcare providers, wearable devices, cloud servers, and patients introduces critical challenges related to data privacy, integrity, authentication, and secure access control. Conventional centralized healthcare architectures often suffer from vulnerabilities such as single points of failure, unauthorized data manipulation, delayed verification, and limited interoperability. To address these limitations, this research proposes a Blockchain-Enabled Secure Data Sharing Architecture for Smart Healthcare Environments that integrates blockchain technology, distributed storage, smart contracts, and cryptographic authentication mechanisms for secure and transparent healthcare data management. The proposed framework employs decentralized ledger technology to ensure immutable medical record storage and trusted data exchange among authorized entities. Smart contracts automate access permissions and enforce security policies dynamically, while lightweight encryption and consensus mechanisms improve transaction reliability and reduce latency in healthcare communication networks. Furthermore, the architecture incorporates IoT-enabled wearable healthcare devices and cloud-assisted analytics for real-time patient monitoring and intelligent healthcare services. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that the proposed model significantly improves data confidentiality, authentication accuracy, transaction transparency, and resistance against cyberattacks compared with conventional healthcare data-sharing systems. The architecture also achieves reduced processing delay, enhanced scalability, and improved trust management in distributed healthcare ecosystems. The proposed framework provides a robust foundation for secure, transparent, and intelligent healthcare infrastructures in next-generation digital medical environments.