Electronic healthcare services are becoming increasingly more popular every day, and rightfully so – they enable high-quality healthcare services to people who can’t make it to the “real” doctor, to those who live in rural areas, as well as to people who cannot afford medical care. However, despite their positive results, they also have one major downside: they create opportunities for new types of security and privacy threats.
As with all electronic devices, information security and protection of privacy are incredibly important – and healthcare systems should be no exception. If no attention is paid to these aspects, healthcare services can put users at great risks.
Various mobile apps are used in not only developed but in developing countries too, as they increase the access to public health care. They can also improve patients treatment in rural areas, strengthening the link between the whole society and the public health system. It’s obvious why it’s incredibly important to keep researching and investing into these projects; the problem is, many of them fail because of issues related to information security and privacy.
For this reason, according to Leonardo Iwaya, a Ph.D. student in computer science at Karlstad University, “These issues have to be considered from the start if you want to develop digital healthcare systems in which information is properly secured, and privacy is protected.”
So, paying attention to the protection of privacy and data security should be just as important as programming the app itself.
Source:
Karlstad University via ScienceDaily (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170615084754.htm)
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