Medical data encryption for communication over a vulnerable system
View Patent ↗A method for securing patient medical information for communication over a potentially vulnerable system includes separating patient's medical file into a demographics layer and a data layer, separately encrypting the demographic layer and data layer using different encryption keys, and providing servers in a communication and processing system with a decryption key for the layer processed by such server. Medical file data may be separated into more than two layers. Users accessing the system are authenticated using standard techniques. By separately encrypting different parts of a patient medical record, processing and communication of patient medical files by intermediary servers is enabled without risking disclosure of sensitive patient information if such servers are compromised.
1. A method for communicating a medical file of a patient, said medical file including personal demographic information and medical data, the method comprising:
separating the patient medical file into a plurality of layers including a demographic layer comprising the demographic information and a data layer comprising the medical data, wherein the medical data includes a diagnostic image;
encrypting the demographic layer using a first encryption key;
encrypting the data layer using a second encryption key, wherein the second encryption key is different from the first encryption key;
sending the encrypted demographic layer and data layer to a server which is capable of decrypting one of the encrypted demographic layer and the data layer but not both;
decrypting the data layer at the server;
performing an operation on the decrypted data layer, wherein the operation performed on the decrypted data layer comprises selecting a portion of said diagnostic image;
re-encrypting the data layer including the selected portion of said diagnostic image;
sending the encrypted demographic layer to a destination device;
receiving the encrypted demographic layer at the destination device;
decrypting the encrypted demographic layer in the destination device and recovering a pointer to the data layer;
sending a request, based on the pointer, from the destination device to the server requesting transmission of the re-encrypted data layer;
sending the re-encrypted data layer from the server to the destination device in response to the request from the destination device;
receiving the re-encrypted data layer at the destination device; and
decrypting the re-encrypted data layer in the destination device.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said re-encrypting uses a third encryption key different from the first and second encryption keys.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of layers further includes a prescription layer, further comprising:
encrypting the prescription layer using a fourth encryption key;
sending the encrypted demographic layer, data layer and prescription layer to a prescription server which is capable of decrypting the prescription layer but not either of the encrypted demographic layer and the data layer; and
performing a prescription operation on data within the prescription layer.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data layer comprises a data stream.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of layers further includes a diagnosis layer.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of layers further includes a physician orders layer.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein: the operation performed on the decrypted data layer comprises formatting at least a portion of said diagnostic image within the data layer to match display parameters of the handheld device.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein: the operation performed on the decrypted data layer comprises analyzing an EKG trace to recognize a diagnostically significant pattern, and selecting a diagnostically significant portion of the EKG trace.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising receiving a data selection criteria from the handheld device, wherein:
the operation performed on the decrypted data layer comprises using the received data selection criteria to select said portion of said diagnostic image of the decrypted data layer.
10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transmitting user authentication data from the handheld device to the server;
comparing the received user authentication data to user authentication data stored on the server in order to authenticate the user; and
enabling transmission of the demographic layer and data layer to the handheld device if the user is authenticated.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the first and second encryption keys are time coded.
12. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the first and second encryption keys are dynamically generated.