Abstract
In Taiwan, national health insurance coverage began in 1994, and the Bureau of National Health Insurance has issued health smart cards since 2004. In addition to tracking medical reimbursements, these smart cards store healthcare information, including electronic prescriptions, medical procedure and vaccination records, drug allergy histories, and information about a patient’s willingness to be an organ donor. We conducted this study 4 years after the smart cards had been introduced in order to review how drug allergy history is recorded using this system. Our results reveal that the drug allergy histories are incomplete in many cases, and the format used to record a patient’s drug allergy history is not consistent. We offer suggestions to promote the standardization of drug allergy history records.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
McElroy, D., and Turban, E., Using smart cards in electronic commerce. Int. J. Inf. Manage. 18 (No.1):61–72, 1998.
Liu, C. T., Yang, P. T., Yeh, Y. T., et al., The impacts of smart cards on hospital information system—An investigation of the first phase of the national health insurance smart card project in Taiwan. Int. J. Med. Inform. 75:173–181, 2006.
Johnson, J. A., and Lyle, B. J., Drug-related morbidity and mortality: A cost-of-illness model. Arch. Intern. Med. 155 (18):1949–1956, 1995.
Lesar, T. S., Briceland, L., Stein, D. S., et al., Incidence of adverse drug events and potential adverse drug events: Implications for prevention. JAMA. 274:29–34, 1995.
Kuperman, G. J., Gandhi, T. K., and Bates, D. W., Effective drug allergy checking: Methodological and operational issues. J. Biomed. Inform. 36:70–79, 2003.
Jones, D., Smart cards—The key to secure and flexible health care provision. Card Technol. 15:8, 2003.
Stockman, S., A healthy approach to German smart cards? Chip Talk. Card Technology Today. 19:9, 2007.
Kuperman, G. J., Bobb, A., Payne, T. H., et al., Medication-related clinical decision support in computerized provider order entry systems: A review. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 14:29–40, 2007.
Hsu, M. H., Li, Y. C., and Liu, C. T., ADRs and smart health cards. CMAJ. 175 (4):385, 2006.
Lai, J. T., Hou, T. W., Yeh, C. L., and Chao, C. M., Using Healthcare IC Cards to manage the drug doses of chronic disease patients. Comput. Biol. Med. 37 (2):206–213, 2007.
Ernstmann, N., Ommen, O., Neumann, M., Hammer, A., Voltz, R., and Pfaff, H., Primary care physician’s attitude towards the German e-health card project—Determinants and implications. J. Med. Syst. 33 (3):181–188, 2009.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hsu, MH., Yen, JC., Chiu, WT. et al. Using Health Smart Cards to Check Drug Allergy History: The Perspective from Taiwan’s Experiences. J Med Syst 35, 555–558 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-009-9391-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-009-9391-5