Robust Steganography Technique for Enhancing the Protection of Medical Records in Healthcare Informatics.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Information Security
• Computer Science

Background:

• Patient data security is a major challenge in healthcare information systems.
• Protecting sensitive Electronic Patient Records (EPR) and clinical notes is crucial.
• Current methods may lack robust security for sensitive medical data.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a secure steganography scheme for embedding confidential patient data within DICOM images.
• To enhance data security by scattering information across multiple carrier images.
• To ensure the imperceptibility of embedded data to the Human Visual System (HVS).

Main Methods:

• A novel steganography scheme embedding Electronic Patient Records (EPR) data and doctor's comments into DICOM images.
• Data is fragmented and embedded across multiple DICOM carrier images for increased security.
• Least Significant Bit (LSB) Substitution method used for embedding dummy secret data.

Main Results:

• The proposed scheme successfully embeds confidential data within DICOM images with imperceptible alterations.
• Performance metrics including PSNR, MSE, RMSE, SSIM, and various NR-IQA parameters (BRISQUE, NIQE, PIQE) were evaluated.
• Calculated entropy confirmed the effectiveness of the data embedding process.

Conclusions:

• The developed steganography scheme offers a resilient and computationally secure method for protecting patient data.
• Embedding data across multiple DICOM images enhances security compared to single-carrier methods.
• The technique ensures data confidentiality while maintaining the integrity and visual quality of medical images.