Health Care Industry Turning To Smart Card Technology

The health care industry is learning that smart cards can help by serving as a personal, portable patient record -- speeding up registration, reducing fraud, improving the quality of care and providing rapid access to critical information in an emergency.

“When was the last time you looked at anything other than a piece of paper for your healthcare information? The healthcare industry needs to catch up,” said Frank Avignone, vice president of Cocentrx, at the recent Smart Card Alliance Conference.

There is a huge potential for savings in many areas, according to Paul Contino, vice president of Information Technology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. As an example, he cited one major hospital that did an exhaustive analysis of its medical records and found 200,000 duplicates. Fixing those problems costs between $60 and $100 each.

“That’s $1.5 million in medical record clean up costs, and you have the problem again every two or three years because of registration mistakes. You can avoid this cost with smart cards,” Contino said.

Contino heads up a program at Mount Sinai to issue and use smart card-based personal health records that contain identification and insurance information to speed up registration and reduce identification errors. It also stores medical information such as allergies, current medication and a recent history of tests and procedures. This information helps avoid medical errors and duplicate procedures. It even contains an EKG, something emergency room doctors say can be extremely valuable in an emergency, but is hard to come up with when every second counts.

It is also very privacy sensitive and secure. Information on the card is encrypted, and the patient must enter a PIN for healthcare givers to access information, giving them full control over their privacy, an essential requirement for HIPAA compliance.

Mount Sinai and technology partner Siemens are working with 10 other New York City area hospitals that plan to use the same technology in what they call the HealthSmart Network.

Lake Pointe Medical Center near Dallas, a Tenet hospital, is planning a similar smart card pilot starting in January. Dale Grogan, a director for SMART Association, a membership loyalty marketing organization serving the healthcare industry, made the announcement at the conference that the hospital will become the first client to use their new LifeMed patient registration and personal health record.

About the Author

Brent Dirks is senior editor for Security Today and Campus Security Today magazines.

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