title: The role of patients and their health cards in integrated eHealth environments.
abstract: Communication and co-operation processes in healthcare and welfare require the involvement of all parties involved, including health professionals as well as patients. Generally, professionals can and will easily communicate via trusted health networks. To enforce both communication and co-operation between professionals and patients and to guarantee the required degree of involvement of patients in shared care environments, smart cards are widely used. They serve as person identifiers on the one hand and as security token on the other hand. Acting as storage media and portable application systems, patient data cards enable patient-controlled exchange and the use of personal health data for specific purposes such as prescription and disease management. Additionally, patient status data such as the emergency data or the immunisation record may be stored in and communicated by patient data cards.
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz Zentrum München - German Research Center for Environmental Health, Neuherberg, Germany.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hildebrand
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pharow
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blobel
mesh_terms: D003195:Computer Communication Networks / Q000458:organization & administration; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005858:Germany; D006751:Hospital Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D008498:Medical Record Linkage; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000458:organization & administration*; D020380:Needs Assessment; D010355:Patient Identification Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012984:Software; D018511:Systems Integration