Table 1

Method of operation

Notation

PTj

Patient j

HCPi

Health Care Provider i

ITA

Identifier Translation Agency

PR

Population Register

DRi

Disease Register i

NHE_PID

Personal identifying deatils for a Notifiable Health Event

NHE_MED

Medical details for a Notifiable Health Event

{NHE_PID}_KPR

NHE_PID encrypted with the public key of PR

{NHE_MED}_KDRi

NHE_MED encrypted with the public key of DRi

N

A nonce (number-used-once)

prlu()

Population Register look-up, returns a PRID

PRID

Population Register ID number

italu()

Identifier Translation Agency look-up, returns a PDRID

drlu()

Returns the name of a Disease Register, given a nonce

PDRID

person/Disease Register-specific ID number

drup()

Updates a Disease Register database with the NHE_MED for a particular PDRID.

Protocol

1.

PTj → HCPi : NHE_PID,NHE_MED

2.

HCP → ITA : {{NHE_PID}_KPR,{NHE_MED}_KDRi}_KITA

3.

ITA → PR : {{NHE_PID}_KPR, N}_KPR

4.

PR : PRID = prlu(NHE_PID)

5.

PR → ITA : {PRID,N}_KITA

6.

ITA : PDRID = italu(PRID, drlu(N))

7.

ITA → DRi : { PDRID,N,{NHE_MED}_KDRi}_KDRi

8.

DRi : drup(PDRID,N,NHE_MED)

This table should be read in conjunction with the commentary provided in the text.

Churches BMC Medical Research Methodology 2003 3:1   doi:10.1186/1471-2288-3-1