Development of an Internet Security Policy for health care establishments

The Internet provides unprecedented opportunities for interaction and data sharing among health care providers, patients and researchers. However, the advantages provided by the Internet come with a significantly greater element of risk to the confidentiality and integrity of information. This paper defines the basic security requirements that must be addressed in order to use the Internet to safely transmit patient and/or other sensitive Health Care information. It describes a suitable Internet Security Policy for Health Care Establishments and provides the set of technical measures that are needed for its implementation. The proposed security policy and technical approaches have been based on an extensive study of the related recommendations from the security and standard groups both in EU and USA and our related work and experience. The results have been utilized in the framework of the Intranet Health Clinic project, where the use of the Internet for the transmission of sensitive Health Care information is of vital importance.