Innovate Health IT

Secure electronic medical records with attribute-based encryption

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) would be useful for electronic medical records applications where different players – doctors, nurses, admission, finance – are responsible for different areas, and thus are granted access only to specific slices of data. Whereas traditional role-based encryptions will unlock data for a user who has the proper key, with ABE parts of the data set at a granular level can be locked and unlocked based on the attributes of a user, such as their job title, department or security clearance.

In a healthcare example, a single data set of a patient’s image scans can be published. However, a user conducting anonymized research of a specific condition might only see image files or results with no personal identifiable information. Conversely, the patient’s physician treating the condition might see the full details of the file.