Development of fingerprint biometric authentication system for health information exchange

Abstract

To support healthcare professionals in managing the array of information available about patients and the populace, healthcare systems have adopted and continue to incorporate a variety of information and communications technologies (ICT) into the delivery and administration of healthcare. However, isolated ICT systems cannot maximize health outcomes because healthcare delivery occurs within the context of a highly complex system since patients receive healthcare services in a variety of healthcare settings. However, health information exchange (HIE) enables more complete and timely sharing of data and information among ICT systems used in healthcare delivery while supporting provider and patient access to information when and where needed. Thus, this paper presents the development of fingerprint biometric authentication system for health information exchange based the centralized federated HIE model. The proposed HIE system accepts ready-only information from the finger biometric authentication system. The proposed HIE platform has been successfully developed using RESTful API technology and fast health interoperability resource (FHIR) standards to ensure standardized transfer of health information with successful real-time online results. The HIE platform allows for continuous record of patient be made to be available at the point of care subject to authorization by the patient and is applicable in outpatient service delivery, emergency service delivery, public health surveillance, clinical research and clinical trials participants scouting. As a future direction, a clinical decision support system could be implemented on top of the API so as to promote the practice of personalized medicine.