Securing Electronic Health Systems Using Enhanced Transform Domain Image Watermarking Technique

Abstract

The implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) in Telemedicine application has significant effects in the area of medical negligence liability. Exploring issues such as confidentiality, authentication and integrity raises several concerns as regards to the responsibilities service provider need to harbor following (EHR) implementation. A critical factor in storing and transmitting patient information is to properly authenticate the integrity of patient’s digital data. In these processes, the need to preserve the confidentiality of patients is highly paramount. In most cases, an alternative is to embed all records in the intended image itself. Different schemes adopted in literature seem to have an effect on the diagnostic content. For instance, the Least Significant Bits (LSB) plane can be manipulated, due to its poor robustness and imperceptibility. This paper presents an enhancement to watermarking scheme in transform domain, with the use of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) algorithm and Huffman compression technique. The objective of image compression is to reduce the redundancy of the image, transmit data securely and minimizing data size when transmitting data through communication links. The LBG algorithm further enhances the security of medical data in transit through simultaneous data compression and encryption prior to data concealment with discrete wavelet transform domain image watermarking technique. Analysis of the developed technique performance evaluation shows Peak to Signal ratio greater than 40dB and a Structural Similarity ratio of 0.999. Therefore, the performance evaluation of the developed technique using these metrics revealed its adequacy to provide adequate confidentiality security pillar of medical data on transit in Electronic Health Systems.