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
NHEPID

Personal identifying deatils for a Notifiable Health Event
NHEMED

Medical details for a Notifiable Health Event
{NHEPID}KPR

NHEPID encrypted with the public key of PR
{NHEMED}KDRi

NHEMED 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 NHEMED for a particular PDRID.


Protocol

1.
PTj → HCPi : NHEPID,NHEMED

2.
HCP → ITA : {{NHEPID}KPR,{NHEMED}KDRi}KITA

3.
ITA → PR : {{NHEPID}KPR, N}KPR

4.
PR : PRID = prlu(NHEPID)

5.
PR → ITA : {PRID,N}KITA

6.
ITA : PDRID = italu(PRID, drlu(N))
7.
ITA → DRi : { PDRID,N,{NHEMED}KDRi}KDRi

8.
DRi : drup(PDRID,N,NHEMED)


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