A Framework for Capturing Patient Consent in Pervasive Healthcare Applications

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors describe a new framework for pervasive healthcare applications where the patient’s consent has a pivotal role. In their framework, patients are able to control the disclosure of their medical data. The patient’s consent is implicitly captured by the context in which his or her medical data is being accessed. Context is expressed in terms of workflows. The execution of a task in a workflow carries information that the system uses for providing access rights accordingly to the patient’s consent. Ultimately, the patient is in charge of withdrawing consent if necessary. Moreover, the use of workflow enables the enforcement of the need-to-kwon principle. This means that a subject is authorised to access sensitive data only when required by the actual situation.