An authorization model for e-consent requirement in a health care application

More and more coordination of health care relies on the electronic transmission of confidential information about patients between different health care services. Since the patient data is confidential, patients should be able to delegate, give or withhold e-consent to those who wish to access their electronic health information. Therefore the problem of how to represent and evaluate e-consent becomes quite important in secure health information processing. This paper presents an authorization model for e-consent requirement in a health care application. The model supports well controlled consent delegation, both explicit and implicit consent and denial, individual based or role based consent model, and consent inheritance and exception. A system architecture for e-consent is also presented.