Truncated Encrypted Patient Identifier Search System
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Solution Overview
Problem
The healthcare industry faces challenges in securely searching and logging access to electronic health records due to the complexity of HIPAA compliance, which requires logging access events for multiple patients, leading to substantial data storage burdens and processing power consumption.
Innovation Solution
Implementing truncated, encrypted searching methods that extract and encrypt subsets of patient identifiers, allowing for efficient matching of search strings against encrypted databases while reducing the need for full decryption and logging, thus maintaining security and compliance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If full patient identifiers are encrypted and stored for HIPAA compliance, then security and privacy protection is improved, but data storage space and processing power consumption increase substantially
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the patient identifier into multiple segments: a truncated portion (first subset of characters) that is encrypted and stored separately for search purposes, and a full identifier portion that remains encrypted for compliance. This segmentation allows the system to store only the necessary truncated encrypted versions for searching while maintaining full encrypted identifiers for HIPAA compliance, thereby reducing storage space requirements without compromising security or compliance.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent extracts the truncated portion of the patient identifier (first subset of characters) from the full identifier and creates a separate encrypted version of this truncated portion. This extracted truncated encrypted identifier is stored independently and used for search operations, while the full encrypted identifier remains intact for compliance logging. This extraction reduces the amount of data that needs to be stored and processed while maintaining compliance.
2Measurement precision
If all patient records are decrypted for searching, then search accuracy is improved, but processing power and time consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary encryption of the truncated portion of patient identifiers before storage. This preliminary action allows the system to prepare encrypted truncated identifiers in advance, which can then be directly compared with encrypted search queries without requiring decryption during the search process. This preliminary encryption enables accurate searching while avoiding the processing overhead of decrypting all records during search operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of the patient identifier from the full identifier to a truncated portion (first subset of characters). This parameter change reduces the amount of data that needs to be processed during search operations. By working with the truncated encrypted identifiers rather than full encrypted identifiers, the system maintains sufficient search accuracy while significantly reducing processing power and time requirements.
3Reliability
If access logs are created for all patient records accessed during searching, then HIPAA compliance is improved, but data storage and maintenance burden increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the patient identifier into a truncated portion used for searching and a full portion used for compliance logging. This segmentation allows the system to maintain full encrypted identifiers for compliance purposes while using truncated versions for efficient searching. The access logs can be maintained with the full encrypted identifiers, ensuring HIPAA compliance without requiring decryption or storage of all patient records during search operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy of the truncated portion of the patient identifier (first subset of characters) and encrypts it separately for search operations. This copy allows the system to perform searches without accessing or logging the full patient identifiers during the search process. The full encrypted identifiers remain available for compliance logging, ensuring HIPAA compliance while reducing the complexity of log storage and maintenance.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods, apparatuses, and computer program products are provided for truncated, encrypted searching of encrypted identifiers. A method may include receiving patient information associated with a plurality of patients and including a patient identifier of a sequence of characters for each of the plurality of patients. Methods may further include: extracting a first subset of the sequence of characters from each of the patient identifiers; encrypting the first subset of the sequence of characters from each of the patient identifiers to form a first truncated encrypted identifier for each of the plurality of patients; encrypting each of the patient identifiers to create an encrypted patient identifier for each of the plurality of patients; and storing the first truncated encrypted identifiers and the encrypted patient identifiers for each of the plurality of patients.