Privacy and security problems of national health data warehouse: a convenient solution for developing countries

Healthcare providers and researchers can discover the hidden knowledge from different health repositories if integration of data is performed by data warehousing. Integration of health records requires linkage of patients' data in different heterogeneous sources. Preserving record linkage in National Health Data Warehouse, by retaining identifiable attributes, is essential for effective data mining as well. In contrast identifiable health data have high risk to patient privacy and make the health information systems security vulnerable to hackers. In this paper, we have provided a practical solution: Global Patient Identification Technique (GPIT) that can anonymize identifiable private data of the patients while maintaining record linkage in integrated health repositories to facilitate knowledge discovery process. We have used encrypted mobile number, gender and NAMEVALUE of patients to produce Global Patient Identification Key. This system is being implemented in Bangladesh to develop National Health Data Warehouse. Our approach is also suitable for the developing countries where poverty and illiteracy rates are high among mass people.