SECURE AND USABLE AUTHENTICATION FOR HEALTH CARE INFORMATION ACCESS

• US 20120323607A1
• Filed: 08/23/2012
• Published: 12/20/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: JIN, HONGXIA, WANG, QIHUA
• Granted Patent: US 9,727,937 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/35 communicating wirelessly
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2111 Location-sensitive, e.g. geographical location, GPS
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2137 Time limited access, e.g. to a computer or data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/88 Medical equipments
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3228 One-time or temporary data, i.e. information which is sent for every authentication or authorization, e.g. one-time-password, one-time-token or one-time-key
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3234 involving additional secure or trusted devices, e.g. TPM, smartcard, USB or software token network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using an additional device in a packet data network H04L63/0853

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention relate to providing a health care provider access to an electronic record of a patient may be provided. A determination is made as to whether the health care provider is logged onto a computer system in a physical area assigned to the patient. Whether the health care provider is logged onto the computer system during working hours of the provider is also ascertained. The health care provider is provided with access to the electronic record of the patient via the computer system if the determining resolves to true and the ascertaining resolves to true.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining if a health care provider is logged onto a computer system in a physical area assigned to a first patient;

ascertaining if the health care provider is logged onto the computer system during working hours of the health care provider; and

if the determining resolves to true and the ascertaining resolves to true, providing the health care provider with access to an electronic record of the first patient using the computer system.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

detecting the health care provider in the physical area assigned to the first patient;

logging the detected health care provider onto the computer system in the physical area assigned to the first patient; and

logging the health care provider off of the computer system in the physical area assigned to the first patient if the health care provider is no longer detected in the physical area assigned to the first patient.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the detecting comprises:

detecting that a portable wireless device assigned to the health care provider is near the computer system.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the detecting comprises:

using a card authentication protocol to authenticate the portable wireless device.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the card authentication protocol comprises a time-based shared secret stored in the portable wireless device that is changed on a regular basis.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the ascertaining resolves to false, determining an elapsed time to when the health care provider last accessed electronic records of first patient'"'"'s; and

extending the working hours by a particular amount of time if the elapsed time is less than a threshold.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the health care provider has had access more than a particular number of electronic records of patients in less than a particular amount of time, denying the health care provider access to the electronic record of the first patient.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the second patient is not assigned to the area assigned to the first patient, denying the health care provider access to a second electronic record of a second patient via the computer system.

9. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

if the health care provider is using a computer system assigned to the health care provider and in an office assigned to the health care provider, providing to the health care provider access the electronic record from the assigned computer system.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

if the health care provider inputs a password that allows the health care provider to log onto a computer system of a health care organization of which the provider is a member, allowing the provider to access the record via the computer system of the health care organization.