The Privacy Management Platform - An Enabler for Device Interoperability and Information Security in mHealth Applications

摘要

Chronic diseases are on the rise. Afflicted patients require persistent therapy and periodic screenings. This causes high treatment costs and overburdened physicians. Innovative approaches that enable patients to perform treatment methods on their own are badly needed. Telemedical approaches with the aid of modern Smartphones connected to medical devices (the so-called mHealth) can be the answer. However, mHealth apps face two key challenges, namely device interoperability and information security. In this paper, we describe how the Privacy Management Platform (PMP) and its extendable Resources can contribute to these challenges. Therefore, we analyze a real-world mHealth app and derive generic functional units, each realizing a certain task recurring frequently within mHealth apps, e.g., metering, data storage, or data transmission. For each functional unit we provide a PMP Resource, enabling both, device interoperability and information security. Finally, we revise the analyzed mHealth app using the Resources in order to evaluate our approach.