Privacy and security issues for mobile health platforms
From Digital Culture & Society
Contents |
[edit] Find article online:
D.O.I: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23066
[edit] Context
This article focuses on the possible promises and issues of mobile health platforms (mHealth). They are a subfield of EHealth that uses mobile platforms to collect health data from communities and deliver healthcare information to professionals in that field. The article highlights first how the US healthcare system was having various issues at that time. They stem from a rising population, cost inflation, varying clinical quality, and extensive information needed. The healthcare industry manages data records to tend to the patient accurately. However, the volume of data is exponentially growing. There is a need to extend health services across distant populations. Mobile health platforms offered a possible solution. The article states it could allow the healthcare enterprise to shift from an intervention to a care coordination model. This model allows the patient to be more active in their healthcare decisions wherever the location. However, the article also states privacy and security issues could emerge from mobile health platforms. As society continues to use platforms to deliver information, awareness of what data the individual is sending to where needs to be considered. These models rely on the patient to deliver protected personal information in the hopes of not being misused.
[edit] Overview
The article's main question is how effectively mobile health platforms could face privacy and security concerns. It examines some important security and privacy issues with mobile health development and how they could be addressed. The article mentions that a study by the Ponemon Institute stated that around 1.5 million American citizens were victims of medical identity theft. While 70% of consumers agreed on the importance of control over their health information, 49% of the victims did not take any future measures to protect themselves after their incident. It shows that information exchanges through these systems require being accurate and confidential. Secure mobile systems could help health professionals administer the correct prescriptions while maintaining patient privacy. The article describes the security engineering process of Mhealth platforms and how they work. It states use cases of how mobile health platforms apply themselves to privacy and security concerns. In addition, industry and government security best practices are mentioned to assist healthcare organizations in meeting security and privacy needs. The architecture for mobile health platform security is through the lens of Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), health data repositories, and web-based e-health services. It has also mentioned the importance of the mHealth systems to have an architecture-level protection strategy. Such a strategy can remedy information security, authorization, and service-level security issues from weakening the platform. One use case mentions the Artemis analytic system's benefit in leveraging data analytics from mobile devices to clinical settings. Its privacy tool is its de-identification of protected health information before processing and storing it within the system. This process happens in real-time as physiological data enters various monitoring devices. Further explanation of the use cases can be found in articles.
[edit] Strengths and Weaknesses
Beginning with the strengths, the article defines various contexts and requirements regarding security in mHealth. Mobile health platforms need to address numerous overlapping security possibilities. Understanding some of those contexts for what they are is crucial. Coloured figure images support this understanding by highlighting the level of complexity of health information exchanged and its interoperability. These go through ad hoc, regional, multi-regional, and nationwide security contexts. Another strength the article has is several use cases mentioned that detail the security contexts they face and how they provide a solution. For example, for the Wireless Health Applications section, they provide three use cases for their deployment and possible security issues on that platform. They go through The Carson Springs, Artemis analytic system, and the Extensible Mobile platform as all separate cases to show the range of mHealth security measures. As for weaknesses, the most glaring one is the publish date being 2014. The article may provide useful information, but it only pertained to that era of technology. As of the year 2023, technology has vastly increased in complexity. Security measures mentioned in this article could be outdated compared to modern systems. While use cases are important, specific quantitative research could also benefit this article. Measuring data from people using mobile health platforms and how effective their security protocols are compared to other means of health information protection could help prove the usefulness of mHealth platforms.
[edit] Assessment
In conclusion, the article, while outdated, still provides useful information in diving into the importance of providing an important security model architecture to protect users on mobile health platforms. It does somewhat answer its initial question if mobile health platforms have the architecture to protect security and privacy. The use cases help provide some context to how these security systems work and how they distribute data to health organizations. People interested in network security, health, and the general public can benefit from this article’s information. Mobile platforms continue to grow in usage, so understanding their workings is crucial to being safe online.
cs20tj 16:09, 08 December 2023 (EDT)
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