Citation

Sutradhar, Shrabani and Bose, Rajesh and Khan, Arfat Ahmad and Roy, Sandip and Majumder, Sudipta and Ullah, Fasee and Kamal, Shahid and Rodrigues, Joel J.P.C. (2026) HOBNET: A bandwidth-efficient multilayer protocol stack for healthcare blockchain networks. Informatics in Medicine Unlocked, 64. p. 101773. ISSN 23529148

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Abstract

Due to the proliferation of IoT devices, electronic health records, and clinical imaging systems, medical data volumes have increased dramatically. This clearly exposes the weaknesses of traditional healthcare infrastructures: limited network bandwidth, limited computational resources, and scaling bottlenecks. This paper proposes a multi-layered architecture named HOBNET (Healthcare Optimized Blockchain Network Protocol Stack) that optimizes bandwidth, resource utilization, and storage during healthcare data management. HOBNET consists of four protocols: the Transaction Batching Protocol (TBP), which exploits bandwidth-efficient semantic aggregation; the By-pass Chain Management Protocol (BCMP), which utilizes storage-efficient dual-chain separation with AES-256-GCM payload encryption and hash-commitment-based integrity verification; the Lightweight Verification Protocol (LVP), which allows resource-constrained end-devices to perform fixed-cost hashchain-based proof verification with O(log4n) Quad-Merkle trees; and the Epidemic Broadcasting Protocol (EBP), which enables adaptive, bandwidth-aware data diffusion tolerating f < n/3 Byzantine nodes. HOBNET assumes a semi-trusted adversary model where a certain fraction (up to 30%) of the nodes is allowed to be Byzantine. The Byzantine nodes include compromised gateways. There is also a set of colluding storage nodes. These Conspiring storage nodes are modeled as honest-but-curious. The simulation results reveal that HOBNET achieves a 13–42× higher throughput, 4–7× lower latency, and 84.6% savings in storage as compared to Hyperledger Fabric and MedBloc. Proposed stack enables the support of 250+ resource-constrained IoT devices with 99.1% delivery reliability under 30% node failure. HOBNET also provides a jurisdiction-aware routing mechanism designed to support HIPAA/GDPR data residency requirements.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Healthcare blockchain
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA71-90 Instruments and machines
Divisions:	Faculty of Computing and Informatics (FCI)
Depositing User:	Ms Rosnani Abd Wahab
Date Deposited:	30 Jun 2026 08:26
Last Modified:	30 Jun 2026 08:26
URII:	http://shdl.mmu.edu.my/id/eprint/16160

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