VA Hospitals across the country are rolling out a high tech employee ID badge program that aims to reduce identity fraud while protecting personal information. The VA Hospital in Big Springs, Texas is the latest to hop on board. Each card features an encrypted chip that holds important info such as fingerprints and government employee verification. The cards also certify that the employee has received a full background investigation.

Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York is readying a new health care smart card program set to launch in early 2010. The project involves issuing over 110,000 smart cards to patients of the center. Each smart card will carry the patient's demographic information plus important medical information such as medical conditions, medications and allergies.

In response to increasing security risks, hospitals are implementing programs that make it easier to identify who is walking through their doors. With more than 4,000 visitors everyday, hospitals in the Cottage Health system in California are taking extra security precautions and employing a visitor identification badge system.

The Children’s Hospital in Sheffield, England is rolling out a new system that combines entertainment and medical records in one unit. Bedside terminals previously used to provide entertainment and interactive services for patients are being outfitted with access to electronic patient records using a smart card access system. Medical records and data are also available from nursing stations and offices throughout the hospital using authorized smart cards.

A new smart card system at The Memorial Hospital in North Conway, New Hampshire was just installed to assist with access and tracking of patients and their medical records. Smart cards aid the process of admission, identifying the patients and also giving patients access to their own medical records, where they can add to their own records. The cards carry information about individual patient demographics, insurance, and medical history. The pre-storage of the information on the smart cards allows for immediate admission into the hospital, speeding along the process.

More and more hospitals and medical centers are turning to smart card credentials as a way to solve some of the health care industry’s bigger problems. By providing patients with smart cards, it’s much easier to properly match medical records, including previous conditions and medications, to the patient. In many cases, quick access to this information can make the difference between life and death.

One of the worst things about going to the hospital, aside from whatever medical condition you're suffering from, is the endless paperwork you have to fill out once you get there. A number of hospitals, including New York's Mount Sai Medical Center are now turning to smart cards as a way to cut down on the paperwork, speed up registration times, maintain more accurate records, and most importantly, quickly identify patients.

Central Florida Regional Hospital has recently initiated a new series of more rigorous security measures and checks after an attempted baby-napping last month. On March 28th, a one-year old boy was taken from the post-partum ward of the hospital by an unidentified (and unauthorized visitor). Thankfully, the child was found and the kidnapper apprehended just an hour later, but the hospital had a wakeup call that their security was lacking and needed a major revamp.

India's ESI (Employee State Insurance) Corporation has announced that it will soon be issuing smart cards to provide employees with health and medical benefits, among others, to employees who fall under the care of ESI. Currently, the ESI oversees the care of about 9 million employees and 30 million beneficiaries all across India.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is implementing Mobilisa's Defense ID system in order to to secure the enormous facility, which has a potential patient population of 8 million people. The center will not be issuing their own cards; instead the Defense ID scanner reads data from any government ID card-- including Canadian driver's licenses-- and crosschecks each individual against more than 100 databases of criminal offenders and other parties who have been banned from military properties.

Managing beds in an emergency room is no small task - with patients constantly streaming in and out of rooms, being tested, released from care, or wheeled into surgery, it takes supreme organization skills and constant movement to keep up with the newest information. Even with the most impeccably organized system, though, there are fallbacks. Rooms and beds aren't cleaned in time, there are bed mix-ups, and ultimately, lags in actual care.