Introduction
Major Benefits
Features of Smart Cards
Objectives
In Brief

The smart chip was invented in France in 1979. It has caught on in Europe and is used widely among Europeans. It's unique silicone chip is used in cell phones, as value cards, banking cards and electronic transit tickets. They can be equipped with a password, and used for security devices at office complexes and military bases. This technology has an unlimited possibility on it's horizon and we are taking the bold step into the health care venue to bring about a more accurate, user friendly and safe record keeping system. More history info >>

A smart card is a standard credit card-sized plastic card that contains an integrated circuit or 'chip' which gives the card the ability to store and/or process data.

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Major Benefits:

• Reduction in medical and pharmaceutical error
• Significant technological advancement
• Data portability and facility security
• Patient mobility
• Patient access to own personal records
• Replacement of paper files
• Patient satisfaction
• HIPAA compliant

More info on HIPAA >>

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Features of Smart Cards:

• Identification
• Relationship programs, customer/patient loyalty
• Secure data storage
• Read and write capabilities
• PIN and PKI protection enabled
• Upward compatible chip system for addition of information and biometric security features
• Linkable to existing systems: Physician office, hospital departments, surgery, labs, pharmacy, information and registration kiosks, web portals.

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Objectives:

• Promote health care as opposed to hospital care.
• Ensure the confidentiality of highly sensitive medical data.
• Enable a higher level of service to system constituents by improving processing time and data accuracy.
• Ensure secure data transmission and storage.

Specific project objectives might therefore include the following:

• Provide a means for constituents to transport core health care registration data.
• Provide strong authentication and digital signature capability.
• Reduce data entry errors on records.
• Encourage the use of electronic business methods.
• Implement one smart health card across the entire enterprise.
• Be honored by all facilities and all employees.
• Provide network-centric, not card-centric, services.
• Securely store clinical and administrative data on one card.
• Be able to update information more easily.
• Provide support for future applications, such as card interaction with kiosks.

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In Brief:

• Smart cards can provide easier information access management, ensuring that users are following established security policies.
• Smart cards are a familiar form factor that can be used for both physical access to facilities and logical access to information on personal computers and networks.
• Smart cards can help enforce access control to health information, providing support for both user authentication and encryption of data on the card and during transmission and storage.
• Smart cards can store health information on the card, performing as secure portable data carriers that are under the control of the patient and the health care professional.
• Smart cards, with on-card intelligence and processing capabilities, are uniquely capable of enabling compliance with strong privacy guidelines and of enforcing the privacy and security policies set by the health care organization.
• Smart cards provide a feature-rich platform for health care organizations to implement new applications that improve access to and convenience of medical care.