HIE Library Archive 2000  

Smart cards have an important role to play in the future of healthcare. By recording a patient's entire clinical history on a smart card, this speeds up and simplifies obtaining patient information, billing and reimbursement. This substantially decreases bureaucracy and therefore reduces costs and overheads. Information can be forwarded electronically to the relevant healthcare authority and insurer. Cards can be accessed via reading devices issued to doctor's surgeries, primary care centres, hospitals and other medical institutions. All this can be achieved while guaranteeing patient privacy.

By offering users a consistent and secure means of access to medical information, smart cards - which usually contain a chip, stored memory and an operating system - have a key role to play in the future of healthcare.

And with the introduction of its new smart card operating system, Microsoft is encouraging application developers to create innovative software which will help achieve the potential of smart cards in the healthcare sector.

To receive more information on smart cards forthcoming developer events and conferences, contact Renaat Himpe, Smart Card Industry Manager, for more background on Microsoft's Smart Card operating system go to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsce/smartcard