Secure and Fast Emergency Road Healthcare Service Based on Blockchain Technology for Smart Cities

• Published in: Sustainability 2023-03, Vol.15 (7), p.5748
• Main Authors: Ksibi, Amel, Mhamdi, Halima, Ayadi, Manel, Almuqren, Latifah, Alqahtani, Mohammed S, Ansari, Mohd Dilshad, Sharma, Ashutosh, Hedi, Sakli
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access control; Ambulances; Archives & records; Blockchain; Communication; Confidentiality; Currency transactions; Data integrity; Decision making; Efficiency; Electronic health records; Electronic medical records; Emergency medical services; Emergency vehicles; Health aspects; Health care; Health services; Health services administration; Internet; Internet of medical things; Internet of Things; Internet of Vehicles; Medical equipment; Medical records; Patients; Privacy; Roads; Smart cities; Sustainability; Systems design; Technology; Technology application; Traffic accidents; Traffic accidents & safety; Traffic engineering; Vehicles; Vital signs
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su15075748

Road accidents occur everywhere in the world and the numbers of people dead or injured increase from time to time. People hope that emergency vehicles and medical staff will arrive as soon as possible at the scene of the accident. The development of recent technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) allows us to find solutions to ensure rapid movement by road in emergencies. Integrating the healthcare sector and smart vehicles, IoT ensures this objective. This integration gives rise to two paradigms: the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), where smart devices collect medical data from patients and transmit them to medical staff in real time. These data are extremely sensitive and must be managed securely. This paper proposes a system design that brings together the three concepts of Blockchain technology (BC), IoMT and IoV to address the problem mentioned above. The designed system is composed of three main parts: a list of hospitals, patient electronic medical record (EMR) and a network of connected ambulances. It allows the road user in the case of an accident to report their position to the nearby health services and ambulances.