The collaboration and exchange of information through mobile devices are limited by the characteristics/possibilities of these devices and the environment in which they are used. Our interest is placed on the medical sector and specifically on the homecare which constitutes a challenging environment. Decision-making in homecare is performed through collaboration between nursing personnel, doctors and others that are not found in the same physical space or with the patient all together. Therefore, there is the need for effective coordination of the medical team providing direct, easy, robust and secure access to the medical records of the patient. Furthermore, collaboration is performed between users that use mobile devices and are constantly on the move. Characteristics of the mobile devices such as their size, their limited functionalism, the small size of memory and the decreased level of security they offer, further limit the efficiency and effectiveness of the homecare medical team.

All the aforementioned issues needed to be further investigated in order to propose solutions that overcome restrictions posed by the usage of mobile devices. The research that has been carried out, aimed in the analysis and study of all medical scenarios, and the evaluation of suitable work flow modeling methodologies and tools. All these, were expected to help in the recognition of all necessary medical homecare services targeting in an effective collaboration of nursing personnel that uses mobile devices. The study has taken into consideration the needed medical services that will be accessed by mobile devices and has resulted in a proposal for a suitable interface that can be used for designing dynamic applications that require adaptability on the characteristics of mobile devices. Furthermore, the study has evaluated a variety of security methodologies and technologies and resulted in a number of proposals to achieve protection of the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive data maintained by the application or exchanged over the internet.

This study has resulted among others, in acquiring technological knowledge which could be applied in developing medical services in a demanding medical homecare environment that is focused on the collaboration achieved through the usage of mobile devices. The study has constituted scientific innovation for the Cypriot research area. The final outcome is a suitably drawn collaborating model that provides services for the homecare focused on the usage of mobile devices, the needs of the patient and the medical personnel, improving the quality of the provided services, and ensuring a secure access to the sensitive data of the patient.

The study and the results of this work, has led to the publication of 2 research studies. The study, "Security Challenges in a mobile healthcare environment", has been presented in the 3rd International Workshop in Wireless Security Technologies (IWWST) that was organized in London, in April 2005. The second study, "E-healthcare Security Framework: DITIS Case Study”, was presented in the Tenth International Symposium on Health Information Management Research (iSHIMR2005) organized in Thessalonica, in September 2005. Furthermore, a third study was submitted in the International Journal of Healthcare Management magazine where we have received important comments which where used to improve the current study and resubmit it in the 8th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems: Security in Information Systems Workshop " that will be organized in Cyprus, in May 2006.

Finally, it should be noted that the study of this work, has used not only the existed bibliography but also used the infrastructure of DITIS system (Networked Collaboration for Home Healthcare), which is managed by the Computer Science Department of the University of Cyprus. The results of this work were successfully applied in DITIS.

You can dowload the project deliverables here.