“I don’t bother with the phone!”: Feeling Closer to Physician using Secure Messaging

This study explores the use of phone and secure messaging via an online patient portal in mediating the communication between patients and their healthcare providers. In analyzing the messages handling processes, we found that although both phone and secure messages were answered in similar manners, the interplay of the front- and back-end roles in collaborative work resulted in patients’ preference for secure messages in communication as they believed it offered direct and empowered communication experiences. This study offers insights on the choice of how different communication media affect patients’ perception toward the quality of the communication and patient-provider relationship.

Attribute Based Cryptographic Enforcements for Security and Privacy in E-health Environments

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Usable Privacy and Security in Personal Health Records

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audiencePHRs (Personal Health Records) store individuals’ personal health information. Access to this data is controlled by the patient, rather than by the health care provider. Companies such as Google and Microsoft are establishing a leadership position in this emerging market. In this context, the need for psychological acceptability in privacy and security protection mechanisms is essential. Any privacy and security mechanism must be acceptable from a usability perspective. This paper presents a study of the privacy policies of 22 free web-based PHRs. Security and privacy characteristics have been extracted according to the ISO/TS 13606-4 standard. In general, quite a good level was observed in the characteristics analyzed. Nevertheless, some improvements could be made to current PHR privacy policies to enhance the management of other users’ data, the notification of changes to the privacy policy to users and the audit of accesses to users’ PHRs