Health Telematics (AIM) Final Report


	Updated: Feb 1, 97
CARDLINK

Health Care Cards and Telematics

Project Code:		A2127
Project value:		1200 KECU
EC contribution:		600 KECU
No of partners:		7
No of countries:		4
Duration:		12 months

Contact:
Philippe Cirre-Santal
Aprolis IV
5, rue de l' Etoile du matin
F-44600 St. Nazaire, France
Tel.: +33-40-00.10.19
Fax: +33-40-70.77.59

Overview

The project has implemented and demonstrated a patient held smart card medical record for particular applications in case of medical emergency.

The record is electronically stored in a secure form on the smart card and may be accessed and updated by the general practitioners, hospital specialists, pharmacists and authorised administrative staff.

Purpose and objectives

The application provides a seamless information key linking primary and secondary healthcare providers. The core dataset is conform with the decision of the Council of Ministers for the development of an emergency health passport and with the Eurocards recommendations.

Cardlink, running in 5 regions in 4 European countries, is a key project to test the inter-operability of emergency cards and the synergy between cards and the use of telematic networks in healthcare. The concept of interoperability has a number of implications for all the actors involved:

To the citizen or the patient, this means that one can travel everywhere with a card issued by his healthcare provider and containing the essential information needed to receive medical treatment: interoperability means that this card is accessible to all other providers, irrespective of the site, the country, the language, the healthcare system, and so on. Technical and functional interoperability of the cards must of course go together with the establishment of a legal and organisational framework that ensures mutual recognition of the cards and that makes the exchange of personal information protected and secure.
To the physician, this means that in case of need, the most recent clinical information is immediately available or can be easily retrieved to deal with the case, avoiding duplications or unnecessary delays.
To the health authorities involved, technical interoperability of cards means that they can concentrate on the application side of the problem, protecting their investment and having access the latest technical developments world-wide, irrespective of the manufacturer or the provider of the technology.
For the industrial partners involved, this means going beyond the development of a specific solution for a specific customer and to access a potentially global market of services and applications based on cards. The agreement reached by the leading European manufacturers of cards and system integrators to work together to develop a common platform and to put it at work within the Cardlink project is certainly another important achievement.

Results

The project consolidates the achievements of previous local actions, providing a practical testbed for the Eurocards initiatives. It is the crossroad of several important international actions and has shown the potential to be the cornerstone for the European developments in the direction of the European Health Passport and to become one of the reference pilot projects world-wide.

The achieved results are a practical demonstration of the efficacy of smart cards in emergency in a diverse range of European Healthcare sectors and regions. The implementation in the participating regions is interoperable in terms of core administrative and emergency information which are accessible in any country regardless of which commercial company supplies the smart card, the reader or the interface system.

Cardlink provides the citizen with a portable medical record which makes it easier to take up residence, travel and work in any participating member state, because diagnoses, allergies, medications, therapies and vaccination records, next of kin and insurance information will be made readily available to doctors wherever the patients seek healthcare.

List of Participants

Mr Alex Giakoumis SOLAIC 3 Place de la Pyramide F-92067 Paris la Defense, France Tel.: +33-1-49.00.94.75 Fax: +33-1-49.01.07.90	Mr Martin Gallagher Eastern Health Board Dr Steevens Hospital IRL-Dublin 8, Ireland Tel.: +353-1-679.07.00 Fax: +353-1-671.05.80
Mr Michael P Ryan Philips Electronic Ireland Limited Newstead, Clonskeagh IRL-Dublin 14, Ireland Tel.: +353-1-764.00.00 Fax: +353-1-764.02.20	Mr Salvatore Mendoliera Lombardia Informatica SpA Via Frigia, 27 I-20126 Milan, Italy Tel.: +39-2-25.77.43.60 Fax: +39-2-25.77.43.29
Mr Giancarlo Ruscitti Universita Tor Vergata Dept. Medicina Sperimentale Via Orazio Raimondo SHC I-00173 Roma, Italy Tel.: +39-6-202.03.01 Fax: +39-6-202.54.85	Mr Fernando Piera ERITEL S.A. Paseo de la Castellana, 141 E-28046 Madrid, Spain Tel.: +34-1-348.12.14 Fax: +34-1-579.10.74 E-mail: fpiera@proint.eritel.es

[ CARDLINK 2 (4 FW, 1994-1998) ]



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