Previously submitted to: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (no longer under consideration since Jun 19, 2025)
Date Submitted: Jul 29, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 14, 2024 - Oct 9, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Privacy Issues in E-health Systems
ABSTRACT
Background:
The rise of e-health systems, including electronic health records (EHRs), telemedicine platforms, and mobile health applications, has revolutionized healthcare delivery by improving access, efficiency, and quality of care. However, the increasing reliance on digital platforms has raised significant concerns regarding the privacy and security of personal health information.
Objective:
This study aims to provide a thorough examination of the privacy issues associated with e-health systems. It seeks to identify and analyze key privacy risks, evaluate current privacy protection measures, discuss their limitations, and suggest potential areas for future research.
Methods:
We conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on privacy issues in e-health systems. The review included an analysis of current data protection methods, privacy regulations, informed consent practices, and emerging technologies such as blockchain and privacy-preserving algorithms. We also evaluated recent studies on privacy breaches and their impacts on individuals and healthcare systems.
Results:
Our review identified several critical privacy concerns, including unauthorized data access, data breaches, and inadequate encryption. Current solutions, such as encryption and access controls, have limitations, including insufficient protection and challenges in balancing data utility with privacy. We also observed gaps in compliance with privacy regulations and the need for more robust privacy-preserving technologies.
Conclusions:
Ensuring the privacy of personal health information in e-health systems is crucial for maintaining public trust and enabling the effective use of digital health technologies. While current measures offer some protection, there is a need for improved privacy solutions and stronger compliance with regulations. Future research should focus on developing advanced privacy-preserving technologies, exploring federated learning models, and addressing ethical concerns related to AI in healthcare. Collaborative efforts among stakeholders are essential for advancing privacy protections and optimizing the benefits of e-health systems.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.