A Tag-Based Data Model for Privacy-Preserving Medical Applications

In autonomous distributed healthcare environments, patients’ electronic medical records are controlled and managed by each healthcare facility. It is important to ensure that when records are accessed and transferred that it is done securely, while still respecting patients’ rights on privacy and confidentiality of their personal health information. We propose a new tag-based data model for representing patients’ electronic medical records as well as access and transfer policy statements. This model helps to categorize the patient information, as well as expressing patients’ consent for a variety of domains (individual, health care provider and facility). Unlike most existing data models used in healthcare information systems, our model supports patients’ consent expression in terms of healthcare facilities, healthcare providers, their roles, and categories of medical records or any combination of them within a single framework. Our model has been demonstrated by developing a prototype system using some trusted computing components.