Context-aware access control for pervasive access to process-based healthcare systems.
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Date
2008-05-19
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Abstract
Healthcare is an increasingly collaborative enterprise involving a broad range of healthcare services provided by many individuals and organizations Grid technology has been widely recognized as a means for integrating disparate computing resources in the healthcare field Moreover Grid portal applications can be developed on a wireless and mobile infrastructure to execute healthcare processes which in turn can provide remote access to Grid database services Such an environment provides ubiquitous and pervasive access to integrated healthcare services at the point of care thus improving healthcare quality In such environments the ability to provide an effective access control mechanism that meets the requirement of the least privilege principle is essential Adherence to the least privilege principle requires continuous adjustments of user permissions in order to adapt to the current situation This paper presents a context aware access control mechanism for HDGPortal a Grid portal application which provides access to workflow based healthcare processes using wireless Personal Digital Assistants The proposed mechanism builds upon and enhances security mechanisms provided by the Grid Security Infrastructure It provides tight just in time permissions so that authorized users get access to specific objects according to the current context These permissions are subject to continuous adjustments triggered by the changing context Thus the risk of compromising information integrity during task executions is reduced