 healthcare identity management  healthcare indentity management a smart card alliance position paper for government policy makers and healthcare stakeholders publication date september 2009 original appearance  healthcare identity management  executive summary policy makers are looking carefully at the best ways to improve our healthcare system with much emphasis being placed on the need for electronic health records for every american this effort also includes creating an infrastructure to allow the exchange of these records at the regional state and national levels with the passing of the american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 arra the federal government is poised to invest over 19 billion in healthcare information technology hitech act 1 this investment will provide significant incentives for healthcare providers to implement electronic medical record emr systems over the next five years this action has the potential to dramatically change the landscape of modern medicine and is generally seen as a tremendous step forward however we must ensure that this course achieves the ultimate goals of this initiative if we are to improve healthcare information management we must start with the accurate identification of each person receiving or providing healthcare services and anyone accessing or using this information as we move away from paperbased medical records that are controlled by physical access to buildings rooms and files we need to have an infrastructure that supports strong identity and security controls the issues with establishing identity are compounded as electronic medical records are used by many different organizations at the regional state and national levels there must be a way to uniquely and securely authenticate each person across the healthcare infrastructure whether that interaction is in person or over the internet read more   industry news  