The collaborative use of patients' health-related information: Challenges and research problems in a networked world, In D. Saha (Ed.) Advance in Data Communications and Networking for Digital Business Transformation

The advancement in the field of information and communication technology has generated a great deal of information that was not possible to access earlier. Healthcare systems are one of the most beneficial applications using wireless medical sensor technologies, which can facilitate patient care within homes, hospitals, clinics, disaster sites, and the open environment. The integration and sharing of such information can contribute significantly to a better understanding of patients' health conditions and therefore to improving the quality of healthcare provided to them. However, in order to achieve sufficient levels of collaborative use of information among healthcare-related practitioners, there is a need to overcome a number of issues such as privacy and interoperability, among others. This chapter discusses two of the main challenges encountered before healthcare information systems can collaboratively share patients' records, namely privacy and interoperability.