Effective watermarking algorithm to protect Electronic Patient Record using image transform

Due to development of latest technologies in the areas of communication and networking, the present businesses are moving to the digital world for effectiveness, convenience and security. Medical images require special safety and confidentiality because critical judgment is done on the information provided by medical images. Digital watermarking is an emerging technology to protect multimedia data for security purpose. This project suggests a comparative performance of digital image watermarking scheme using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) separately and their performance has been measured by using metrics like PSNR, Quality Index and Elapsed time. Initially, the Medical image is decomposed using image transforms like DCT or DWT. Subsequently, the watermark embedding and extraction process are to be performed in frequency domain transform along with LSB substitution algorithm which is of spatial domain. The performance of the proposed watermarking method is explained with the aid of experimental results.