Brussels, 14/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - eEurope Smart Cards (eESC), the EU initiative designed to promote and standardise the development and use of smart cards in Europe, which over 350 European businesses and organisations are involved in, has just published a White Paper putting forward a strategy to develop electronic health cards within the EU. Within this framework, eESC states its support for the European project, Netc@rds. This White Paper contains a detailed analysis of existing health card solutions in the EC, plus recommendations to overcome the main obstacles encountered by the States, a press release explains. It highlights the lack of interoperable solutions at European level, particularly in the field of telecommunications and information systems on health networks within each Member State, which is the main barrier to the standardisation of health networks in Europe. "Here, European companies have an opportunity for industrial development allowing them to offer interoperable solutions and technique in the field of healthcare in Europe, and even the whole world", commented the President of the eESC's "health" working group, Dr Jürgen Sembritzki, stating that the initiative "lends itself perfectly to our objectives: to contribute to smart-card interoperability at European level in the fields of e-government, e-payment, health and transport".
The Netc@rds project was launched in 2002 for one year by Greece, Germany, Austria and France, and focuses on replacing the paper forms E111 and E128 with electronic ones, using data found on existing national cards, or available on-line. It is related to the third phase of the implementation of the European Health Insurance Card (an instrument of modernisation for social security systems in Europe), which was approved by the Commission in February 2002 (see EUROPE of 21 and 22 February), the idea for which had been mooted by Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou at the informal Social Council of Burgos (see EUROPE of 17 January 2002). eESC was launched by the European Commission in December 1999, and was born of the e-Europe action plan 2002 (see EUROPE of 13 February 2002), which was approved by the Feira Summit of June 2002. For further information, visit http: //http://www.eEurope-smartcards.org; http://www.sesam-vitale.fr