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Towards Integrated and Quality-assured Health Service Delivery: Making a Case for Health Smart Card in the
Kenneth Y Hartigan-Go1, Melissa Louise M Prieto1, Angel Faye G Castillo1
1School of Government, Ateneo de Manila University.
Insights
The Philippines
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Public Health Policy
- Information Technology in Healthcare
Background:
- Patients in the Philippines face significant barriers in accessing their medical records.
- Current paper-based, facility-centric systems hinder patient mobility and choice of healthcare providers.
- Limited access to personal health data restricts patient autonomy and informed decision-making.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate the feasibility of a health smart card system in the Philippines.
- To address the critical issue of patient record inaccessibility and empower individuals.
- To explore an integrative digital tool for lifetime medical record management.
Main Methods:
- A prototype health smart card system was developed using no-code programming.
- Validation involved focus group discussions and consultations with patients, administrators, and hospital staff.
- The system was iteratively refined based on stakeholder feedback and recommendations.
Main Results:
- The current system leads to delays, high costs, and difficulties in accessing patient records.
- The health smart card concept received broad acceptance, promising enhanced data accessibility and patient ownership.
- Key implementation challenges include interoperability, data security, scalability, funding, and the digital divide.
Conclusions:
- A health smart card system offers a viable solution to improve patient record accessibility in the Philippines.
- Government support for regulation, funding, and addressing socioeconomic factors is crucial for successful adoption.
- A pilot implementation is recommended to fully assess the proposed health smart card scheme.
Background And Objective:
In the Philippines, patients are constrained from accessing their own records, restricting their ability to freely choose who to seek care from. To address this, the study makes a case for the development of the health smart card in the Philippines, an integrative tool unique to each citizen carrying their lifetime medical record.
Methods:
The prototype is developed using no-code programming technology and validated through a series of focus group discussions and stakeholder consultations with patients (n=4), healthcare administrators (n=4), and hospital personnel (n=13). It was then revised based on the collected insights and recommendations.
Results:
Findings report that the current facility-centric model utilizing paper records constrains patients' access to their records due to long wait times, slow turnaround periods, constant intra- and inter-hospital transfers, and even charging of fees to acquire a copy of their own data. The health smart card alternative was widely accepted by the participants, particularly for its contribution to increasing data accessibility, patient empowerment, and advancing patient data ownership. Nevertheless, several considerations for the upscale implementation of the health smart card emerged, including creating an interoperable environment through harmonizing standards and capacity-building programs, and ensuring data security through robust cybersecurity measures. Issues on scalability and funding of the project were also raised, centering on the critical role of the government in stepping up as regulator and potential funder. Concerns over potential abuse, dataveillance, and the digital divide are tackled, highlighting the need to account for socioeconomic factors to ensure that no one is left behind in the implementation.
Conclusion:
The study makes a case for the development and adoption of a health smart card to address the inaccessibility of records to patients. The study concludes by recommending the conduct of a pilot implementation to comprehensively demonstrate and analyze the features of the proposed scheme.
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