Health informatics — Public key infrastructure — Part 1: Overview of digital certificate services

This standard defines the basic concepts underlying the use of digital certificates in health care and provides a scheme of interoperability requirements to establish a digital certificate-enabled secure communication of health information. It also identifies the major stakeholders who are communicating health-related information, as well as the main security services required for health communication where digital certificates can be required. The standard gives a brief introduction to public key cryptography and the basic components needed to deploy digital certificates in health care. It further introduces different types of digital certificates – identity certificates and associated attribute certificates for relying parties, self-signed certification authority certificates, and certification authority hierarchies and bridging structures.

Main sections:

· Scope

· Normative references

· Terms and definitions

· Abbreviations

· Healthcare context

· Requirements for security services in healthcare applications

· Public key cryptography

· Deploying digital certificates

· Interoperability requirements

· Annex A: Scenarios for use of digital certificates in healthcare