Abstract
Blockchain adds more value to healthcare since its tools emerge as an increasingly popular way to secure, transparently, and tamper-proof sensitive medical records. Nevertheless, current consensus algorithms (i.e., Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT)) use a lot of energy, have latency issues and are not scalable enough or clinically context-aware, which makes them in applicable to healthcare settings. Due to the lack of efficiency of existing solutions, a new lightweight consensus algorithm dedicated to decentralized healthcare systems is proposed, MediCon, in this paper. MediCon incorporates domain-sensitive capabilities, including a Reputation Score (R) where candidates are punished based on their behavior as validators, an Urgency Index (U) that places making progress in clinical transactions in priority, a Committee Rotation Interval (CRI) that maintains dilution of the committee, and a Weighted Voting (WV) system that combines urgency with institutional credibility. Architecture can be summarized as Patient Data Nodes, an Access Layer that is used to provide consent and emergency overrides, Consensus Nodes that are chosen through trust metrics, and a MediCon Core that is used to parse transaction validation. Transactions are put in order of urgency and sensitivity, and then the most reputable validator proposes them. The last block is confirmed with weighted voting and signed with dedicated healthcare compliant standards (e.g., HIPAA, FHIR). Experimental evidence on a simulated multi-institutional healthcare network shows that MediCon leads to latency, throughput, and energy consumption by 48%, 35%, and 60%, respectively, compared to the current consensus models. The similarities in the logic of consensus and clinical priority, as well as trust and patient consent, MediCon provides scalable and secure basis of next-generation healthcare blockchain systems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Computing and Data Communication Systems, ICSCDS 2025 |
| Publisher | Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. |
| Pages | 793-797 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9798331512507 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2025 |
| Externally published | Yes |
| Event | 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Computing and Data Communication Systems, ICSCDS 2025 - Erode, India Duration: 6 Aug 2025 → 8 Aug 2025 |
Publication series
| Name | Proceedings of 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Computing and Data Communication Systems, ICSCDS 2025 |
|---|
Conference
| Conference | 3rd International Conference on Sustainable Computing and Data Communication Systems, ICSCDS 2025 |
|---|---|
| Country/Territory | India |
| City | Erode |
| Period | 6/08/25 → 8/08/25 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2025 IEEE.
Keywords
- Health care blockchain
- Light weight protocol
- Urgency-Aware Validation
- consensus algorithm
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Artificial Intelligence
- Computer Networks and Communications
- Computer Science Applications
- Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
- Information Systems
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment