Enforcing Privacy through Security in Remote Patient Monitoring Ecosystems

We are a population that is getting progressively older. As we age, the need for better quality and efficient healthcare services at home and hospitals is becoming significantly more important. With the increasing cost of providing care-giver based monitoring services for patients and an ageing of the nurse and caregiver population itself, remote patient monitoring (RPM) has the potential to improve the quality of health services and lower the total cost of providing healthcare to chronic care patients by avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations, and ensuring urgent care is afforded to people who are in need of it. The commercial availability of monitoring units to measure vitals such as blood pressure, glucose and weight are assisting in the adoption of RHM. In this paper, the author discusses the enforcement of privacy and confidentiality through security measures and practices. The author end the discussion by outlining additional areas for research and suggestions for future work.