Bridging Electronic Health Record Access to the Cloud

Healthcare providers are faced with mounting pressure to facilitate pervasive access to their electronic health record systems for their patients; the Meaningful Use incentive programs perhaps the most significant driver. Meanwhile the Cloud has expended immense time and resources on the establishment of proficient, easy-to-use digital identities for individuals, while also allowing those identities to be portable across a myriad of disparate systems. This research proposes the success and proliferation of the Clouds' digital identities to be part of the solution to the healthcare industry's access issue. By analyzing industry standards and other ongoing identity related work in other industries, a trust model was produced to enable the exchange of identity information. As such, this research proposes a comprehensive framework for healthcare providers to follow to integrate their EHRs with the Cloud for provide identity validation, while ensuring compliance guidelines for security and privacy. To demonstrate the viability of this research, a number of pilots and concept projects have been implemented at a large regional hospital that have already produced immediate and tangible improvements.