Home → Research Centres → Dampney Centre for IT Applications → Project: Health Informatics

Project: Health Informatics

This research is in the area of exchange and integration of health information. Sharing clinical information brings particular problems because of the sensitivity of the information, as well as the fragmented nature of health providers and consequent duplication of data and diversity of information formats. One strand of the research uses mathematical models as the key tools for security design and assessment and for modeling information structures. A complementary strand of the research investigates barriers to possible technological solutions raised by human, organizational and political factors. The research topics involved in this field are:

Investigation of security protocols and techniques appropriate to the distributed database model intended for accumulating and sharing clinical information among the various organizations in the health system, and possibly with the patient. This must take into account the sensitivity of individual data elements as well as the possible effects of aggregation.
Investigation of web based delivery models for inter-connecting the range of software and databases required for achieving the new integrated architectures. This includes evaluation of Application Service Provider (ASP) technologies.
Building theoretical models that explain information structures as they are developed in practice. This work will extend existing mathematically-based models developed by Dampney and Aisbett.

Key Personnel

Janet Aisbett
Mirka Miller
Ljiliana Brankovic
Peter Summons
Martin Sutton
Brian Regan