Constructing Guidelines for Data Protection in Health Information Systems

AbstractRapid development of community health information networks raises the issue of semantic interoperability between distributed and heterogeneous systems. Indeed, operational health information systems originate from heterogeneous teams of independent developers and have to cooperate in order to exchange data and services. A good cooperation is based on a good understanding of the messages exchanged between the systems. The main issue of semantic interoperability is to ensure that the exchange is not only possible but also meaningful. The main objective of this paper is to analyze semantic interoperability from a software engineering point of view. It describes the principles for the design of a semantic mediator (SM) in the framework of a distributed object manager (DOM). The mediator is itself a component that should allow the exchange of messages independently of languages and platforms. The functional architecture of such a SM is detailed. These principles have been partly applied in the context of the HEllOS object-oriented software engineering environment. The resulting service components are presented with their current state of achievement.

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Data Security in Health Information Systems by Applying Software Techniques

Methods of Information in Medicine ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1636656 ◽

1979 ◽

Vol 18 (04) ◽

pp. 214-222

Author(s):

K. Sauter

Keyword(s):

Information Systems ◽

Health Information ◽

Data Security ◽

Health Information Systems ◽

Database Systems ◽

Modern Computer ◽

Proper Design ◽

Software Construction ◽

Organizational Procedures ◽

Software Measures

The problems encountered in achieving data security within computer-supported information systems increased with the development of modern computer systems. The threats are manifold and have to be met by an appropriate set of hardware precautions, organizational procedures and software measures which are the topic of this paper. Design principles and software construction rules are treated first, since the security power of a system is considerably determined by its proper design. A number of software techniques presented may support security mechanisms ranging from user identification and authentication to access control, auditing and threat monitoring. Encryption is a powerful tool for protecting data during physical storage and transmission as well.Since an increasing number of health information systems with information-integrating functions are database-supported, the main issues and terms of database systems and their specific security aspects are summarized in the appendix.

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