Privacy and security requirements of distributed computer based patient records

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Information Security
• Computer Science

Background:

• The transition from conventional to computer-based patient records (CPRs) introduces escalating privacy and security challenges.
• Networked CPRs across institutions further complicate data protection requirements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To outline the privacy and security issues associated with CPRs.
• To summarize existing measures for privacy and security protection.
• To identify a missing component for effective information sharing.

Main Methods:

• Review and analysis of privacy and security issues in conventional and computer-based patient records.
• Summary of current privacy and security protection measures.
• Conceptual proposal for enhancing information sharing culture.

Main Results:

• Privacy and security complexities significantly increase with the adoption of CPRs and networked systems.
• Existing protection measures are insufficient to address advanced challenges.
• A gap exists in fostering an information sharing culture.

Conclusions:

• Current approaches to CPR privacy and security are inadequate for networked environments.
• A critical component for secure information sharing is semantic indexing via a metadata base.
• Implementing a metadata base at the instantiation level, not just schema level, is essential.