FUTURE APPS

The e-card system has been designed to support a number of future projects, including electronic signatures for pharmaceutical prescriptions, emergency data, electronic vaccination records, and disease management programs. For example, a new e-medication system makes it easier for doctors and pharmacists to share information about potentially harmful interactions among medications.

Launched as a pilot project earlier this year in three regions of Austria, this service permits pharmacists, physicians, and hospitals to see a list of each patient’s current medications. More than 100 physicians, about 50 pharmacies, and 6 hospitals participate in this project. The service will be fully implemented during 2012.

“Our research shows that
people 70 years and older take up
to 10 medications per day,” says
Schügerl. “Tracking and compar-
ing pharmaceutical prescriptions
with health records helps them to
reduce negative interactions. So far
about 7,000 citizens have partici-
pated in this pilot program.” Within
the scope of the pilot project, the
participation of patients, physicians, pharma-
cists, and hospitals is voluntary.

After nationwide rollout of the e-medication
system, citizens can “opt out” if they decide
not to share their health information
online—as some people prefer, due to pri-
vacy concerns. Because of the large number
of involved stakeholders, it was not easy to
balance the different interests and get the
project running. But in general, both patients
and providers have embraced
these existing and emerging
e-health applications, partly as a
result of the robust, Java-based
security architecture. Data is not
stored on the card; it is housed
in a secure data center. Only
authorized providers and ad-
ministrators can access these
records, and they must have
special-purpose equipment.

Stats on a
Successful
Rollout

SVC, a provider of health telematics
and e-government solutions based in
Vienna, Austria, has issued millions
of e-cards to employed Austrian
citizens, along with thousands of
special-purpose computers that rely on Java to securely store
and transmit patient data.

SMART CHOICE

Source: SVC
E-cards (active) in Austria
New e-cards issued
Healthcare providers connected
Pharmacies connected
Hospitals connected
Care facilities connected
E-card transactions completed
Average contacts per day
All-time high (December 14, 2009)

GLOBAL EXAMPLE

Following the slogan, “Move the data, not the patient,” SVC’s Java-based infrastructure has reduced the cost of healthcare administration, improved collaboration between healthcare professionals, and enabled higher-quality services for patients. Other Java applications communicate with the Main Association of Austrian Social Security Institutions to submit medical claims, verify pharmaceutical prescriptions, route disability reports, and transmit medical records between appropriate medical practitioners.

The e-card infrastructure has become the foundation of many future applications in the burgeoning health telematics sector, including a new “citizen card” that streamlines e-government services related to tax declarations, alimony payments, student loans, criminal records, residence registration confirmations, insurance data, and pension accounts. Many other countries have expressed interest in developing similar Java-based systems, including Australia, Bulgaria, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Finland,

8,700,000 850,000 per year 12,500 120 136 15 667,763, 920 Approximately 500,000 629,150

JAVA TECH

tremendous
portability

Germany, Iran, Japan, Kuwait, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Java is the de facto standard for these smartcard initiatives, with 5 billion installations worldwide. Many technically savvy organizations come to the same conclusion as SVC: they depend on Java because it is a powerful and secure environment for applications that run on smartcards and other devices with very limited memory and processing capabilities. </article>