Securing wireless medicine confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, & malware prevention

Wireless medicine is a growing part of the telehealth initiative, but the use of wireless medicine poses significant risks to both the patient/caregiver and the clinician or health care institution. Confidentiality, integrity, nonrepudiation, and malware prevention are all vitally important considerations. The use of smart cards for both patient and clinician identification and authorization is encouraged, as well as the use of equivalent technology embedded within medical devices. A public policy solution to advance the availability of medical smart cards is urged, whereby Medicare/Medicaid, the Veterans Administration, and TRICARE would issue smart cards to their enrollees. The cost of such a deployment is conservatively estimated as less than $814 million, compared to the current cost of medical identity theft nationwide, estimated at $28 billion. Even if this technology were extended to the entire US population, the cost would only be about $3 billion, or a little more than a tenth of the current fraud costs, while providing a significant long-term benefit in terms of confidentiality, integrity, and nonrepudiation.