On the benefits and security risks of a user-centric data sharing platform for healthcare provision

With data breaches on the rise especially after a Covid pandemic, a huge challenge is to design secure platforms for sensitive data sharing and to support vital decisions for both healthcare provision and enhanced personalised patient care. Recently proposed is the design of a patient-centric tool chain to integrate cross-border medical records. The aim is to demonstrate how emerging technologies for authentication, authorisation, and big data storage can converge in a healthcare platform to enable citizens (and researchers) to securely retrieve vital patient health information whilst aligned with data protection regulations and standards. We develop an initial risk model with four common threat scenarios, discussing risk factors such as threat, vulnerability, impact, and likelihood. We detail how the healthcare platform design can mitigate the underlying vulnerabilities with countermeasures that do not compromise the data sharing process transparency and trust for users.