Key management is a fundamental service for medical body sensor network (BSN) security. It provides and manages the cryptographic keys to enable essential security services such as confidentiality, integrity and authentication. In the medical context, the design of a key management service must be consistent with the strict operational and security requirements of healthcare as well as with the resource restrictions of BSN technology.

The Deterministic Pairwise Key Pre-distribution Scheme (DPKPS) allows direct pairwise key establishment in sensor networks. We present a consistent key management service for hospital BSNs based on the DPKPS. We also describe a practical implementation specifically adapted to the strict resource-constraints of the popular MICAz sensor platform. Our performance analysis demonstrates that this key management service enables advanced BSN security services at an extremely low-power and low-memory cost.