Smart cards for Peninsula patients

Revolutionary "smart card" technology is soon to be launched at Brisbane Waters Private Hospital for the first time in an Australian hospital setting.

This pilot project is funded by a Commonwealth grant and will run for a period of six months.

The patient-centred technology has "potential to save the health system millions of dollars," commented chief executive officer Mr Graham McGuiness.

This will allow better patient management through greater data security, privacy and portability, providing timely patient data to numerous health care professionals.

"There is great potential for cost savings by reducing double ordering of pathology and imaging investigations as well as minimising prescribing errors," said Dr Keith Evershed, chairman of the Central Coast Division of General Practitioners.

The project will see the issue of up to 3000 smart cards containing patient administrative and medical history details.

The card is the size of a credit card and contains a computer chip.

The patients selected to participate are cardiac patients from the chest pain emergency service at Brisbane Waters Private Hospital.

Each voluntary participant will receive their own card containing their medical history.

On visiting their doctor, the card will be swiped in a similar manner to bank keycard and their medical history will be immediately accessible to either the general practitioner, cardiologist or the hospital.

The pilot will serve as an Australian demonstration of technology already being used successfully in France and Germany.

"This could be the most exciting development to impact upon the Australian Health Industry," added Mr McGuiness.

Karen Booth, May 17