Secure Authentication Scheme for Supporting Healthcare in Wireless Sensor Networks

In recent years, the average life expectancy of people is extended and total fertility rate is dropped, bring our country into an aged society. Due to this phenomenon, how to provide the aged people and the patients with chronic diseases a suitable environment of health care has become a critical issue currently. Therefore, we propose a new scheme that applies health care within wireless sensor networks in which sensor nodes can measure the vital signs of the aged people and the patients. The vital signs for blood pressure, pulsation, and body temperature measured by sensor nodes would be transmitted to mobile devices of medical staff and system administrator. Sensor node readings enable the medical staff to understand the conditions of the patients in real time which improves the quality of health care for the patients. According to the personal data protection act, the vital signs of the patients can only be accessed by the authorized medical staff. In order to protect the privacy of patients, the administrator will verify the identity of medical staff through the mobile device with smart card and password. Accordingly, only the verified medical staff can obtain the vital signs such as blood pressure, pulsation, and body temperature of the patients. Besides, the scheme includes a characteristic of time-bounded, and then the medical staffs can obtain the vital signs without re-authenticating and re-login into the system in a period of time. Consequently, the time-bounded property increases the work efficiency of the system administrator and user.