AUTOMATIC TRANSFER AND IDENTIFICATION OF MONITORED DATA WITH HIERARCHICAL KEY MANAGEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE

摘要

A measurement device (14) includes a measuring unit (42) for obtaining health related parameters of a patient (12), and a body-coupled communication unit (40) for sending at least measurement results. An identification device (20), associated with the patient, includes a body-coupled communication unit (26) for receiving and sending out the measurement results. A gateway device (72) includes a body-coupled communication unit (78) for receiving patient's measurement results. Additionally, a hierarchical relational deployment model (100) facilitates grouping wireless devices in a healthcare environment into subgroups based on relationships between the devices, and a hierarchical key pre-distribution scheme (110) permits distribution of unique keying material for security domains of respective groups of devices, prior to deploying the devices in a healthcare network. Devices can then execute a handshake protocol by which they identify their deepest common node in the deployment model (100), and employ keying material assigned to that nodes group in the pre-distribution scheme (110) to facilitate granular communication security.