Security for the digital information age of medicine: issues, applications, and implementation.

Privacy and integrity of medical records is expected by patients. This privacy and integrity is often mandated by regulations. Traditionally, the security of medical records has been based on physical lock and key. As the storage of patient record information shifts from paper to digital, we find new security concerns. Digital cryptographic methods provide solutions to many of these new concerns. In this paper we discuss the new security concerns, new legislation mandating secure medical records, and solutions providing this security.