The American Hospital Association endorses the EXTENSION Healthid smart card system

Aug 21 2009

The American Hospital Association, through its subsidiary, AHA Solutions, Inc., has announced its exclusive endorsement of EXTENSION® HealthID™. HealthID™ is a secure smart card that holds individual patient data for use by the hospitals to improve the care experience. Hospitals are able to quickly find and use patient’s information within an individual facility or across their system or network. The benefits of the smart card include providing much improved patient experiences and streamlined administrative costs.

The AHA’s endorsement of HealthID™ comes at a pivotal time for the health care field, when efficiently maintaining and accessing accurate patient information is increasingly important. “Smart cards provide an ideal solution and, of all the systems we evaluated, EXTENSION® HealthID™ is the most comprehensive, secure and versatile,” said AHA Solutions President and CEO Anthony Burke. “The smart card solution enables hospitals to capture, update, access and transfer critical data seamlessly and securely, and provides data interoperability among affiliated sites. By streamlining the flow of information, it also benefits patients, providing them with better service and ultimately improving their quality of care.”

Compared to other programs that usually involve a system integrator and smart card solution, HealthID™ is a pre-packaged, all-inclusive solution consisting of an EXTENSION® rack-mounted appliance, smart cards and card reader. The scalable, design simplifies implementation, for easy integration with the hospital’s existing scheduling, registration, clinical and financial systems. A web-based interface allows hospitals to improve operational processes, such as patient registration, discharge and billing, which can reduce the number of delayed or denied claims.

Smart cards store medical and demographic information, creating a portable, secure record unique to each patient. Health care providers and emergency responders who are not connected to the network also can securely access patient information through a downloadable web-based card reader. Future use of the HealthID™ could include authentication and data sharing with personal health records systems such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault.

While smart card technology is relatively new in the US, HealthID™ has already proven successful with Mt. Sinai in New York, helping them capture more accurate patient information at the point of registration, streamlining billing, eliminating record duplication and errors, and creating better patient experiences. The center anticipates adding clinical information to the cards, enabling providers at off-site locations to quickly and easily access patient data.

“Hospitals and health care centers today demand a solution that will help them provide patients with a portable health record, allow for the seamless yet secure sharing of critical data and drive down costs,” said Todd J. Plesko, Chief Executive Officer of EXTENSION, INC. “Our EXTENSION® HealthID™ accomplishes all of these needs with one device and easy-to-use patient card. We’re very proud of the AHA’s endorsement and look forward to playing a key role in improving the efficiency and driving down costs for the American health care system and our clients.”