Current Status of Information Security for Electronic Health Record Services in India

With the recent developments in information and communication technology, healthcare is constantly undergoing changes, with new medical technologies, business models and research findings. It has evolved as a new data-centric, more precise, productive, accurate and timely system which can make the difference of life and death in acute situations known as Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The requirements for security and privacy are also very critical and very difficult to satisfy in case of EHRs data as compared to any other data. This is due to the conflicting needs of clinicians (who demand open and easy access to EHRs) and the patients (who prefer closed and private access to EHRs). The potential and capabilities of IT and its influence on the Indian healthcare has been much talked about. Thus, this study examines the current status security and privacy of various EHRs implemented in India. Also, based on the various findings we propose a model to protect the security and privacy of the data subjects (patients).