In addition, the project aims to give clients more control over health care and benefits data and more responsibility for managing their own families' use of those programs. The card will eliminate the need to do the same paperwork for different programs over and over. Information on the smart card, including a client's name, weight, height, immunization records, vision exams, WIC benefits, and program and referral information, can only be accessed or updated using the client's personal identification number. Health care providers also would have PINs that determine what data on the patient's card they can access. Those precautions seemed to satisfy some of the 5,000 Bismarck users, Bishop said.
People today are very savvy in terms of electronics.
Siemens Information and Communications Networks is the prime contractor for the Health Passport proj-ect. The company is providing all technology, infrastructure, support and training for the project, which is the largest health care smart card project in the country, according to Mike Irvine, the project's program leader at Siemens. The Urban Institute, a policy consulting firm, also is involved with the pilot, charged with evaluating aspects of the program on the client side. It's kind of early to tell. But using the small focus groups as a baseline, I would say that overall clients are very accepting.