Blockchain-Based Mutual Authentication Protocol for IoT-Enabled Decentralized Healthcare Environment

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, healthcare continuously harnesses its benefits, propelling advancements in medical practices. Within intelligent healthcare, medical robots play a pivotal role, providing integral support to healthcare professionals, streamlining processes, and delivering efficient services. These robots securely transmit patient treatment plans, transferring them to cloud storage and subsequently storing them in blockchain systems. This innovative approach ensures the integrity and accessibility of patient data, introducing novel avenues for seamless interaction with medical information for hospitals and patients' families. Despite these advantages, the looming privacy risks associated with sensitive patient data transmission pose a compelling challenge, demanding a comprehensive solution. In response to this challenge, we propose a mutual authentication and key agreement protocol designed to optimize healthcare services while prioritizing data security and patient privacy. To validate the robustness of our authentication protocol, we conduct thorough analyses based on both formal and informal models, establishing a foundational framework for evaluating the protocol's security. Additionally, we perform a comprehensive comparative analysis, assessing the proposed protocol against existing counterparts across various dimensions. This comparative scrutiny reveals the superiority of our protocol in terms of security, as well as its efficiency in communication cost and computational overhead. These findings affirm the efficacy of our proposed solution in navigating the intricate interplay between medical robotics, blockchain, and data security.