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February 2008 • Volume 13 Number 2 |
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Executive Director's Letter Dear members and friends of the Alliance, Welcome to another edition of the monthly Smart Card Talk newsletter. This month, I want to share with you a significant new value-driven program we have implemented at the Smart Card Alliance as well as focus attention on how the Alliance is driving an organizational agenda that embraces smart cards in different vertical markets. This effort culminates with our 2008 Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference now conjoined with CTST2008 – The Americas Conference in Orlando this May – which brings together all of these vertical markets and smart card innovations in one major event. To promote additional interest in the CTST2008/Smart Card Alliance Annual Conference, we’ve added our annual OSCA (Outstanding Smart Card Achievement) Award presentations to the event. Nominations will be accepted up until March 21st, so make sure you get your favorite organization or individual award nominee submitted in time. All of these programs have common goals – to raise the awareness of smart card technology and improve our market understanding and to constantly increase the value of the Alliance for our supporting commercial and government member organizations and the people who work for them. Finding the time to keep up with industry news and information is critical to everyone’s business day. So, I am excited about the recent launch of our new daily Smart Card Alliance Industry News Summary for our members. This daily news service replaces the weekly news summary we have been providing. It has a much more powerful search engine for filtering only the industry news that each of us needs to know, and it includes tools for presenting it is an organized way. Each day’s news will be presented by industry categories so you can quickly find the news that most interests you, whether it is mobile payments, security, payments, healthcare, transportation or other topics. The news search engine has lots of changeable settings and filters, so it might take me awhile to fine-tune the news summary, but I think you are going to be very pleased with the service. This type of service would cost individuals or organizations from $5000 to $15,000 per year, but the Alliance can offer it free to our members by leveraging the buying power and shared resources of our members.
Feature of the Month Defining the Benefits of Smart Health Cards
This article reviews the benefits that a smart health card can deliver to patients, healthcare institutions, providers and payers.
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A smart health card makes secure and portable exchange of health information possible, allowing patients to retain their personal health records at all times in a convenient and compact format. In addition to identification, demographic, and insurance information, a smart health card can store a wealth of medical information, including a list of health problems, allergies, immunizations, active medications, selected lab results, and recent healthcare interactions. Healthcare providers can read and update a smart health card with new information at the point of care. A smart health card can therefore reduce healthcare inefficiencies and the possibility of medical errors, and empower patients by making them more active partners in the management and maintenance of their healthcare.
Executive Director's Letter
