The internet- and digital signature-based prescription order communication system using synchronized smart cards in the 2-way type terminal

Abstract

In recent, due to influence of the e-business, a wide variety of application of the Internet to the healthcare information systems has been introduced and various pilot researches and developments or tests have been implemented. These new trials and attempts should be greatly efficient and successful for a viewpoint of the on-line workflow based on the networking between the hospital and the pharmacy or among all departments in a healthcare center. However, advanced researches are needed to improve another efficiency and solve serious problems of privacy and management of drug history for patients, security for medical professionals, and unpredictable disconnection of the Internet such as the off-line status. Therefore, this research paper presents a new system's design and development of the prescription order communication system (POCS) based on the Internet between the hospital and the pharmacy, on the public-key infrastructure, and on the concurrently parallel co-operati on with both medical professional's and patient's smart cards in the 2-way type terminal under the synchronized status. And then we will implement the proposed system for government project for the separation of the dispensary from the doctors office in the Republic of Korea. A patient's prescription data merged with a professional's digital signature used in the developed prototype system have been stored on the patient's smart card under the network- and PKC-based fusion environments. Concurrently parallel co-operation method at the synchronized status has been proposed in order to merge the digital signature generated by a medical professional with a patient's prescription data. i.e., the proposed system should feature the secure transmission of a patient's medical prescription from the hospital to the pharmacy via the Internetnntranet under the on-line status and the concurrently parallel co-operation with both patient's and professional's smart cards in the 2-way type terminal under the synchronized status. The digital signatures written by the medical professionals (doctors and pharmacists) holding and using their individually master smart cards are applied to all contents of the prescription stored on a patient's slave smart card at the synchronized status in the 2-way type terminal. Therefore, digital signatures for all prescriptions stored on the smart card in the developed prototype system should effectively be used to prevent being altered, forged, and reused by unauthorized users and being repudiated by medical professionals.