Biometric Authentication: Safety and Security of Health Care Information Systems

摘要

Health is our greatest asset, so we are very sensitive about the provision and handling with our medical information, when we get sick. Protection of medical data is becoming a very important issue. Many Slovenian companies are working on improvement of information systems involved in hospital activities. For many hospitals, because of the financial aspect, modernisation of IT systems is not acceptable. Access protection to the systems with personal passwords, which must be entered from medical personnel, in order to activate the health program, is quite inefficient, since after the completion of the application, the user must to log out from the system. Many persons forget to logout and computer databases sometimes stay open and accessible for use by unauthorised persons. Using of long passwords with included mixed letters and numbers, combined with permanent changes of passwords by users, is a good solution, but in practice, it is very annoying for healthcare personnel to remember ever changing and complex passwords. As a result of other activities and work stress users sometimes can't remember the passwords. Hence, they write a reminder about a password on a paper and stick it on the computer screen which of course isn't secure any more. Biometric authentication is a modern way of protecting hospital information systems, as well the other electronic devices, which require traceability of use and prevent unauthorised use. Since biometric characteristics are constantly carried around by users, it is not possible to lose them or abuse them. Consequently, biometric authentication of medical staff is both safe as well as comfortable to use.