Towards a comprehensive framework for secure e-Healthcare information

The world is witnessing escalation in security and privacy breaches in e-Healthcare, despite advances in information security and privacy enhancing technologies. The international drive to introduce healthcare information privacy protection laws has not led to the abatement of security and privacy breaches. The emergence of a wide variety of standards has not brought e-Healthcare close to the securing of e- Healthcare information and protecting patient privacy. Escalating increase in pervasive computing devices in an increasingly wireless networked environment has created a conducive breeding infrastructure for security and privacy breach attacks in e-Healthcare. It would, therefore, seem to be necessary and worthwhile to seek for a comprehensive framework that allows for a more holistic provision of security and privacy protection. It would seem to be logical that such a framework would have based on a convergence of the key drivers to e-Healthcare information privacy and security. Such key drivers are crucial and determining factors in the protection of privacy and security of e-Healthcare information. Privacy protection laws, organisational policy, human factors, paradigmatic developments in the healthcare domain, governance and leadership, and advances in the IT security and computing technology are some of the key drivers to the provision of security and the protection of privacy.