Cards and Tokens for Accessing Personal Health Records in an Enlarged Europe

摘要

Advanced Health Information Systems and related Health Telematics Applications depend on acceptance-based involvement and more specifically empowerment of all parties requiring secure and trustworthy communication and co-operation. Hardware tokens like cards used in healthcare stand for purposes of identification and verification, information provision, privacy protection, access rights, and limited data structures for person-related medical information storage for, e.g., immunisation, allergies, and emergency procedures. Categories like awareness, confidence, and acceptance are considered important success factors, too. Different technologies allow for distinguishing between token functionality like authentication on the one side and authentic information provision tools on the other. Using cards in healthcare and welfare for empowering citizens and patients in an enlarged Europe with open borders raises important questions on whether a card shall be considered a token -a key to access functionality- or a tool with its own application functionality and related data. The paper intends to analyse cards with regard to their usage in a pan-European health information systems context.