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Review
. 2021 Oct 17;21(20):6886.
doi: 10.3390/s21206886.

Sensors for Context-Aware Smart Healthcare: A Security Perspective

Edgar Batista  1   2 , M Angels Moncusi  1 , Pablo López-Aguilar  3 , Antoni Martínez-Ballesté  1 , Agusti Solanas  1
Affiliations
Review

Sensors for Context-Aware Smart Healthcare: A Security Perspective

Edgar Batista et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The advances in the miniaturisation of electronic devices and the deployment of cheaper and faster data networks have propelled environments augmented with contextual and real-time information, such as smart homes and smart cities. These context-aware environments have opened the door to numerous opportunities for providing added-value, accurate and personalised services to citizens. In particular, smart healthcare, regarded as the natural evolution of electronic health and mobile health, contributes to enhance medical services and people's welfare, while shortening waiting times and decreasing healthcare expenditure. However, the large number, variety and complexity of devices and systems involved in smart health systems involve a number of challenging considerations to be considered, particularly from security and privacy perspectives. To this aim, this article provides a thorough technical review on the deployment of secure smart health services, ranging from the very collection of sensors data (either related to the medical conditions of individuals or to their immediate context), the transmission of these data through wireless communication networks, to the final storage and analysis of such information in the appropriate health information systems. As a result, we provide practitioners with a comprehensive overview of the existing vulnerabilities and solutions in the technical side of smart healthcare.

Keywords: Internet of Medical Things; context-aware environments; contextual sensors; information security; smart healthcare; user-centric sensors; wireless body area networks.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
User-centric attributes for smart healthcare: each icon, representing the sensors of an attribute, is assigned to a part of the body where that attribute can be collected.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Contextual attributes for smart healthcare that can be sensed from context-aware environments.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Component-based representation of the 3-tier communication architecture for WBANs.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Relationship among the actors involved in smart healthcare systems.
Figure 5
Figure 5
The taxonomy of security attacks in smart healthcare systems.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Taxonomy of security solutions in smart healthcare systems.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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