Security in hospital information systems.

The paper links the previous and proposed activities of IMIA WG4 with the developments of IMIA WG10. The fading systems boundaries, increasing and integrated functionality together with the increasing use of information within HIS to care for patients raises the questions of whether HIS should be treated as 'safety critical' systems or medical devices and tested appropriately. These considerations immediately lead to the need to establish appropriate security standards for HIS.