Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
namely patient health records. Regulations defined
by governments worldwide impose compliance
guidelines on how providers should protect
sensitive data. Ensuring patient data security
and integrity requires healthcare providers to
implement strong digital security and encryption
methods for users, organizations and authorities
accessing these applications. The common security
and encryption methods currently in use involve
secure hash algorithm (SHA)-2 hash functions,
secure socket layer (SSL), virtual private network
(VPN), transport layer security (TSL), and digi-
tal identity cards. While these measures may be
common practice, their respective implementa-
tion is far from simple, leading IT managers to
install new software and hardware on application
servers, perform network modifications, and
manage distribution and storage of private keys
and certificates.
IT infrastructure will still be a challenge in
many coming years. Network bandwidth has
always been a scare resource since the day In-
ternet was born. Although, there have been a
lot of advancement in broadband technologies
for the last decade, such as the release of ADSL
and ADSL2+ technologies, the current broad-
band bandwidth does not seem to be sufficient
for medical data transfer. The infrastructure
reliability issues including failure in local and
broadband networks, intermittent access to the
network remain unresolved. Backup solutions
providing redundancy can be implemented but
only in specific situation where additional costs
are justified. Healthcare providers continuously
strive to increase their number of customers, while
at the same time increasing the number of online
services provided to existing customers, which
may require ongoing collaboration with other
healthcare providers. These two parallel paths
drive continuous growth in terms of the number
of users and traffic that an IT infrastructure can
accommodate. As traffic grows, the infrastructure
must be aligned with new business requirements
for capacity increase. Typically, scaling up IT
infrastructure implies hardware replacement lead-
ing to a break in business continuity and therefore
costly downtime.
Interoperability between different devices and
networks using different protocols and network
bands requires more research and development
effort (Stankovic et al, 2005). Overcoming this
limitation will virtually make ubiquitous health-
care services possible. However, this situation
will last for sometimes because industry-wide
standards are currently not available for such
equipments.
Finally, the majority of researches on e-
healthcare systems for Epilepsy patients are still
limited to resolving technological issues such as
functions of the system and quality of seizure
detection. Potential side effects of the proposed
systems, especially the implantable or wearable
wireless devices, on patients have not yet been
properly addressed. Further researches on this area
are required though this may not be of interest of
researchers at the present.
Non-Technical Issues
Various management issues related to the imple-
mentation of a CREHS still need to be resolved
and may take even more time to be adequately
addressed than other technical issues. This includes
legal matter related to privacy and security of a
centralized e-healthcare system, access to broad-
band technologies for many rural areas, outpatient
statistics, co-operation and collaboration between
stakeholders, and project cost/benefit analysis.
Collaboration issues between scientists and
physicians, between clinicians and designers al-
ways exist. Many scientists, working diligently to
develop rigorously validated therapies, have never
met one of their target patients. They struggle to
collaborate with physicians, who are focused on
individual patients, not protocols and values. On
the other hand, most clinicians, while they meet
patients daily and provide thoughtful, sensitive
care, have never visited patients in their homes
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