The proposed Phase I project will develop softwaretools for embedding digital signatures in compliance with theproposed Electronic Data Interchange (EDl) standard forhealthcare and demonstrate the feasibility of using digitalsignatures along with remote database look-up procedures toautomate existing procedures, which are time and paper intensive,in a home healthcare service. The results of the project willproduce a working software prototype module of the DigitalSignature Standard (DSS), which can be embedded in other softwareproducts used for EDI, and a feasibility study for deployment ofa prototype system utilizing a Remote Database Access (RDA)mechanism for healthcare transactions. The results will providethe foundation for creating a "middleware" product to link thehome healthcare transactions to a large Health MaintenanceOrganization (HMO) through an existing EDI translator owned bythe HMO. The Phase 11 project will comply with the ANSI X12Healthcare specification, which is currently in development.Potential commercial application of the research:The proposedsoftware has many applications in automating healthcaretransactions, such as: patient records for reimbursements andoutcome studies, and third party financial transactions requiringauthenticated supporting materials. Broad markets exist forsupporting billions of dollars annually in electronic commerceapplications.
