Envisioning secure and usable access control for patients

It has been observed in pilot tests that patients who are able to access their Electronic Health Records (EHR), become more responsible and involved in the maintenance of their health. Patients accessing their EHR can commit more faithfully to therapies, thus increasing their treatments’ success rate. However, despite technologically feasible and legally possible, there is no validated or standardized toolset available yet, for patients to review and manage their EHR. Many privacy, security and usability issues must be solved first before this practice can be made mainstream. This paper proposes and discusses the design of an access control visual application that addresses most of these issues, and offers patients a secure, controlled and easy access to their EHR.