High-Dimensional Quantum Key Distribution for Secure Healthcare Communication Systems: Integrating Internet of Medical Things, Electronic Health Records, and Smart Medical Gate

Abstract

The emergence and advancement of technologies such as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), Electronic Health Records (EHR), and Smart Medical Gate (SMG) have remarkably changed patient care practices. With the digitization of healthcare services, concerns regarding data security have increased. These systems face increasing risks due to cyber threats and the advances of quantum computing technology. For instance, Peter Shor’s quantum algorithms are predicted to affect the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive medical data. This puts classical (non-quantum) cryptographic systems such as RSA (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman) and ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) at risk. This work proposes an integrated high-dimensional quantum key distribution (HD-QKD) infrastructure for secure medical data transmission across IoMT, EHR, and SMG ecosystems. It introduces a cloud-based Central EHR/Cloud Server for key management, along with edge Quantum Security Gateways. The system employs qudit encoding (d > 2) over a 50 km optical fiber link with 12-dB attenuation. Its edge-centric design ensures noise resilience and delivers a high information rate per photon. It also provides low-latency security against quantum threats while maintaining compatibility with existing fiber networks through wavelength division multiplexing. Simulations validate the system's potential, achieving secure key rates of 2.5 megabits per second between medical structures-double the rate of prior qubit-based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) protocols-demonstrating superior scalability and performance for real-time healthcare applications.