A secure e-prescription system based on NFC

Poozesh, Mohammad Kazem (2016) A secure e-prescription system based on NFC. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to introduce a secure e-prescription system which is able to protect patients and their physicians, who have privacy concerns in using paper-based prescription. Patients have concerns with disclosing their health information that might be a source of embarrassment, lack of confidence or damage to the individual's reputation. On the other hand, drug companies want to figure out physicians prescribing patterns to persuade them for prescribing their drugs by sending their representatives to them. This thesis introduces a new e-prescription system based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, using smartphone and cryptographic tools such as digital signature to protect the identity of both the patients and physicians. The proposed system is implemented as a mobile application to use on smartphones and other hand-held devices. In order to achieve this goal, this thesis adopts a digital proxy signature and a short group signature. The proxy signature helps the patient to delegate their signing right to another party in order to collect their prescription when they are not able to do so. The short group signature helps the physician to sign the prescription anonymously in a group of physicians, which will protect the identity of the physician. The short group signature has been used in the implementation. This signature, which is shorter than RSA-based signatures, helps to suit better this application on handheld devices, which have power and computation constraints. The implementation of this system also uses NFC on smartphones, which will be used at pharmacies by the patients as the proof of their identities. As a result, without revealing the real identity, patients will be able to collect their prescriptions.

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