New York Hospital To Use Smart-Card Based ID Solution For Patients
Oberthur Technologies and SMART Association Inc. recently announced a partnership to offer a secure physical and logical access smart card-based admissions solution to hospitals and clinics throughout North America. The first of these solutions assists patients at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in New York.
The Brooklyn N.Y.-based, 305 bed teaching hospital, which offers emergency care as well as outpatient services to more than 75,000 visitors annually, needed a way to speed up patient registration and assist in providing accurate, updated admissions information.
"We are constantly looking for ways to make the patient experience a positive one," said Rajiv Garg Wyckoff's president and CEO. "Offering an easier way to see their doctor is just the tip of the iceberg- being able to quickly verify the patient's identity and provide error-proof registration in seconds is the real benefit."
Oberthur Technologies will provide Wyckoff enrollment work stations and its Personal Identification Verification (PIV) based, ID-OneCosmo smart card, the same card used by millions of Americans to secure their personal identifiable information.
"We're providing Wyckoff a proven, interoperable, non proprietary platform on which to build a patient centric, health-IT infrastructure," said Patrick W. Hearn, Oberthur's VP of government and identification markets -- America's. "Teaming up with Smart Association allows Oberthur to offer an end-to-end solution that utilizes our standards-driven tools with an intuitive patient admissions software program. It will now allow Health care institutions to provide the proper level of authentication to protect patient privacy."
SMART Association's patient admissions and identity software, LifeMed, will allow Wyckoff admissions staff to securely identify and authenticate the patient and the data on the card.
"LifeMed streamlines the patient admissions process and connects the patient's smart card instantly to external data sources such as clinicians EMRs, HIEs, etc., creating a comprehensive medical record, providing a more accurate and up-to-date patient record," said David Batchelor, CEO of Smart Association. "By utilizing LifeMed software with Oberthur Technologies, our clients increase administrative efficiencies and patient satisfaction by allowing them to carry and securely transmit their personal medical information on a proven smart card. In addition, organizations that have used LifeMed have seen a return on investment within 8-16 months of installation by reducing duplicate records, record errors, medical fraud, admissions paper and other administrative costs."
Cards will start being issued to Wyckoff patients second quarter of 2010.