Applying secret sharing for HIS backup exchange

To secure business continuity is indispensable for hospitals to fulfill its social responsibility under disasters. Although to back up the data of the hospital information system (HIS) at multiple remote sites is a key strategy of business continuity plan (BCP), the requirements to treat privacy sensitive data jack up the cost for the backup. The secret sharing is a method to split an original secret message up so that each individual piece is meaningless, but putting sufficient number of pieces together to reveal the original message. The secret sharing method eases us to exchange HIS backups between multiple hospitals. This paper evaluated the feasibility of the commercial secret sharing solution for HIS backup through several simulations. The result shows that the commercial solution is feasible to realize reasonable HIS backup exchange platform when template of contract between participating hospitals is ready.