When asking ‘what are the pros and cons of smart cards in the healthcare sector, it’s important to understand the nuances and look at individual cases.

Smart cards are the next generation of technology for the retail, education and healthcare sectors, plus many more besides. Yet, as all technology brings with it a level of both flexibility and complexity, it naturally has both advantages and disadvantages to those businesses adopting it.

Smart cards are no different. In this Universal Smart Cards blog, we are going to give you first the pros of Smart cards and secondly the cons of them, so you can weigh up your options and decide if this technology is right for you.

What Are Smart Cards In Healthcare?

A smart card is a plastic card embedded with a computer chip, which stores and transacts data between users and data points. The data is associated with either value or information - or both - and is stored and processed within the card's chip. The card data is transacted via a card reader, which is part of a larger computing system.

Smart cards in healthcare can perform a number of roles. In some countries, smart cards can hold a digital version of a patient’s clinical information, such as medical records, vaccination history and test results. In the UK, smart cards in healthcare tend to carry less clinical data, but that doesn’t make them any less useful.

Smart cards can also be used for staff, to permit access to patient care, treatment rooms, hospital buildings and restricted areas, for example.

What Are The Advantages Of Smart Cards In Healthcare?

The recent increase in patient records and healthcare data naturally creates new challenges for healthcare staff and clinicians, particularly around the efficiency of patient care and privacy. For example, in many healthcare settings, patients are still asked to transport their own patient records between departments, exposing risks to data breaches in particular.

Smart cards could solve many of these challenges, by providing secure, compact and efficient storage of data. Among the various cards available, chip cards could well be an excellent choice for healthcare smart cards.

Here are some pros of smart cards for healthcare in more detail:

Improved Quality Of Care

A primary benefit of smart cards in healthcare is a potential reduction in the number of medical errors and fewer duplicated medical tests.

More than 20,000 deaths occur each year because of medical errors. The ability to accurately link a patient to an up-to-date medical record dramatically reduces the number of adverse events, and thus reduces the number of medical errors that occur due to a lack of accurate patient information.

Smart cards can hold a patient’s medical records in one easy-to-transport place and are already used to do so in many countries around the world, meaning patients are never without the most up-to-date version of their medical history to present to clinicians.

Increased Productivity

In addition to storing patient records, smart cards can store additional data, such as health insurance plans (if patients have one) and other legal documents, such as POAs. This means that healthcare workers spend more time caring for patients and less time wading through endless paperwork, increasing productivity and focussing efforts where they are most needed.

Increased Security

Smart cards have two different types of interfaces: contact and contactless – dependent on whether they need to make physical contact with the card reader or not. Where contact smart cards are chosen, they can therefore be used for access control, ensuring only certain verified personnel are permitted to gain access to specific areas.

This is particularly important in a healthcare setting, where patients may need to be excluded from restricted areas, such as x-ray or CAT scan rooms or laboratories. Security can be further enhanced by specifying which members of staff are granted access to which areas, ensuring only trained personnel are able to access dangerous or highly sensitive parts of the building.

Tamper Proof

Due to their reliable tamper-resistant microprocessor, smart cards have a great processing power. This allows them to encrypt information and execute instructions from specific programs, all safely and securely.

Smart cards therefore offer an incredibly high level of security and enhanced confidentiality when it comes to sensitive healthcare data. They are used worldwide in applications where the security and privacy of information is a critical requirement, hence they are an obvious choice for the healthcare sector.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Smart Cards In Healthcare?

Obviously, where there are pros, there are also cons. So let’s take a look at some of the disadvantages that healthcare services might encounter when utilising smart cards.

Easily Lost

Smart cards are small and lightweight, which means they could be easily lost or misplaced. What’s more, it could be easy for patient’s to forget them, either if bringing them from home or moving between hospital departments.

As a result, loss of or damage to smart cards could cause issues for the healthcare provider and would immediately negate all of the benefits mentioned above.

Thus, if smart cards are to be employed in a healthcare setting, it’s important that the information stored on the cards is also backed up to the cloud or a central computer, ensuring information is always accessible even if the card itself is lost, damaged, stolen or forgotten.

Furthermore, it’s important a system is put in place to remind staff and patients about the importance of looking after their smart cards, and simple solutions, such as lanyards, could go a long way to minimising this risk.

Infrastructure Changes

New technology is only useful if a medical facility has the necessary infrastructure to suit that technology. For example, if a cardholder enters a facility that does not have the appropriate card reading equipment, the smart card is redundant.

As such, adopting smart cards as a new system may require some significant infrastructure upgrading, to ensure the smart cards work as expected. In reality, this could mean a considerable financial outlay and some disruption whilst installation work is carried out.

However, Universal Smart Cards are experts in this area and can provide a bespoke end-to-end solution, ensuring both that the cost is fair and justified, and any disruption is minimised.

Universal Smart Cards: Get In Touch

Universal Smart Cards have worked independently in the smart card industry for over 20 years. With a combined industry experience of 100+ years, you could say we have developed and perfected a bespoke service.

From manufacturing to supplying, we can ensure you receive the highest quality service and products.

If you would like to take your healthcare facility and patient care to the next level, then our experts are on hand to talk you through the best options for you. You can contact one of our specialists today directly at 0333 700 0078. Alternatively, you can email us at sales@usmartcards.com.

We look forward to hearing from you!