An Interoperable Cross-Context Architecture to Manage Distributed Personal E-Health Information

Abstract

Ensuring interoperability across different healthcare providers becomes an important issue with a potentially large return on investment (ROI) potential when multiple healthcare providers are collaborating in an e-Health system. In cross-context communications, the same information can be expressed by means of different types or values. This chapter proposes a new architecture for cross-context identity management in the e-Health application domain, aiming to improve interoperability between healthcare providers when context-specific information, such as patients’ identifiers, is transferred from one context to another. Furthermore, an algorithm for issuing and converting context-specific identifiers, based on cryptographic techniques, is presented. How the proposed cross-context interoperability service can be integrated in a real-word e-Health system is explained with a use case scenario.