Leveraging the cloud for electronic health record access

Healthcare providers are under increasing pressure to enable widespread access to their electronic health record (EHR) systems for the patients they serve; the meaningful use incentive programs are perhaps the most significant driver encouraging this access. Elsewhere, the cloud has become extremely efficient and successful at establishing digital identities for individuals and making them interoperable across heterogeneous systems. As the healthcare industry contemplates providing patients access to their EHRs, the solution should leverage existing cloud investment, not duplicate it. Through an analysis of industry standards and similar work being performed in other industries, a trust framework has been derived for exchanging identity information. This research lays out a comprehensive structure that healthcare providers can easily use to integrate their EHRs with the cloud for identity validation, while meeting compliance guidelines for security and privacy. Further, this research has been implemented at a large regional hospital, yielding immediate and tangible improvements.