Study on privacy and security of the eHealth record sharing system

Abstract

The HKSAR Government proposed to develop electronic health record sharing as an infrastructure for healthcare reform and rolled out a 10-year two-stage programme in 2008 and 2009 respectively. The Government plans to launch the System by the end of 2015 to start the cooperation of the public and private medical sectors. Reviewing this recent established information system, the purpose of this research is to examine the public’s perception and attitudes towards the security and privacy framework of electronic health record sharing system (eHRSS). Meanwhile, obtaining the public’s trust and support, establishing a thorough set of legal frameworks governing the operating of the System is crucial. The privacy and security framework will be investigated by the relationship with the public’s acceptance. Second part of the dissertation will study and evaluate the proposed frameworks of eHealth record system.

The objectives of the questionnaire study aims to first determine the factors of privacy/ security concerns and the individual characteristics that may contribute to the public acceptance of a coming eHRSS. A hypothesized model grounded in the Diffusion of Innovations theory and the Technology Acceptance Model is developed using survey method. And the second aim is to investigate the respondents’ perspectives on security technology and electronic data feature.

Below diagram outlines the topics discussed in the dissertation. EHR is patient’s sensitive data and must be protected by effective measurements from different aspects, such as privacy, security, standards and regulations.