Bernd Blobel
Universitaet Magdeburg
Germany

Shared Care is the common answer to the challenge for improving health system's quality and efficiency. This develop- ment must be accompanied by implementing shared care information systems moving to extended electronic healthcare record systems which are distributed and have to be interoperable too. Comprehensive communication and co-operation between healthcare establishments is increasingly using the open Internet. Regarding the sensitivity of personal medical data due to legal, ethical, social and psychological implications, such communication and co-operation must be provided in a trustworthy way. The HARP project launched and funded by the European Commission specified and offered a solu- tion for distributed, component-based, trustworthy applications based on Internet technology. Specifying and implement- ing Enhanced Trusted Third Party (ETTP) services, the HARP solutions concern secure authentication as well as authori- sation of principals. By associating role profiles and security attributes to standard Web-based interactions, HARP pro- vides an initial degree of 'automation' in building certified secure medical Internet-based applications deploying estab- lished paradigms such as object orientation, component architecture, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol, and XML stan- dard. The solution has been demonstrated and evaluated in a clinical study environment.

Keywords: Electronic healthcare record; Security; Internet; Authorisation; Enhanced TTP services; Trustworthiness; Healthcare

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