Healthcare Information Systems

¶ … Integrating Fingerprint Verification into the Smart Card-Based Healthcare Information System and it was published in 2009. This research article was a result of the efforts put in by Daesung Moon, Yongwha Chung, Sung Bum Pan and Jin-Won Park.

Due to the increase in very large scale integration technology, smart cards, which are credit card sized plastic cards embedded with memory inside a chip were introduced. These smart cards are able to store all information which is personal and is not shared with others. This research paper describes where the use of a smart card is applied in healthcare information systems and how integrating the use of smart cards is different from the usual ways in which patient information is gathered. In order to obtain relevant patient data, connection to the hospital database is necessary. This, however, is not possible in cases where connections are not available for example in ambulances and therefore having smart cards reduces the chances of not being able to get relevant patient data on time.

The aim of this paper is to identify how the existing PIN- based system in smart cards can be replaced by fingerprint technology. It analyses three different strategies according to which fingerprint verification can be implemented into a smart card and how verification occurs between the smart card and its reader. This paper also evaluates several verification algorithms and how security of the data transmitted in to the card can be guaranteed. Different scenarios are taken into account and based on the level of their security execution requirements it is determined how fingerprint verification implementation will take place.

This research article, though written in simple, easy to understand words contained several flaws which were quite evident. The title of the research paper "Integrating Fingerprint Verification into the Smart Card-Based Healthcare Information System" did not fit in well with the introduction. The introduction failed to critically analyse this title but instead defined what a smart card is and its characteristics. It mentioned that the smart card has several advantages due to which countries like Taiwan, Germany and France have adopted them but failed to highlight what the advantages are. While considering the issues related to smart cards the paper was unsuccessful in bringing to light the issues and mentioned only that they could be found in a reference research article. An example is there are many other

Issues to consider and the details of other issues can be found in [11, 12]. This sentence is very vague. In short, the introduction does not contain a proper problem or a solution and does not contain a thesis as to what the writer/s is trying to convey through the research. The introduction of any document is supposed to lead the reader into knowing what will be discussed throughout the paper. It gives an overview of the entire research. The introduction of this research article clearly failed to do so.

The background of a research paper gives a summary of what is being investigated. It tells the readers what the study is about, where and why it was being conducted and by whom. The background of this research article does not provide any of the aforementioned aspects. It simply begins with an introduction on biometrics and their use in health care. A positive aspect about the background is that it identifies and defines the different modules that will be used in the research and gives a glimpse of the aim of the research which is to integrate fingerprint verification in to smart cards.

Since there is no proper thesis statement provided in the introduction or the background, it is rather hard to link the remaining parts of the paper with the title. Much of the paper discusses ways in which the fingerprint verification technique can be implemented and the different strategies and scenarios which are analysed give an idea of how this will happen. But without the thesis one cannot tell whether the author's reasons are supporting the thesis or completely rejecting it.

The thesis statement is provided in the conclusion. While this is a positive aspect, having placed it in the introduction would have made the understanding of the article more clear. Presence of the thesis statement in the conclusion only will force the reader to go back and read the article once again. Though there is nothing wrong with that, it is not appropriate.

The grammar and punctuation that was used in the research article was appropriate. However in many places the use of the word 'we' was found. Using words which show personal opinions are not very acceptable.