The PHC offers many important benefits to healthcare providers and patients alike. In the first place it helps reduce the mountain of paperwork generated in the healthcare industry, cutting costs and lessening the risk of medical errors and adverse drug reactions, said by the US health authorities to be the 3rd and 4th leading causes of death in the United States.
In a paper-only system, sharing a patient’s medical information among the various caregivers, including EMTs, emergency room personnel, physicians, surgeons and pharmacists, is often slow, cumbersome, and error-prone. PHC cards, on the other hand, allow patient files to be shared much more quickly, easily and securely.
Barriers to communication—for instance where the patient doesn’t speak the local language, suffers from Alzheimer’s or dementia, or is unconscious—can turn an emergency situation into something worse. The PHC overcomes those barriers by storing all of a person’s health and payment information, so that appropriate care can be prescribed and administered effectively and swiftly.
PHCs also reduce admission time and clerical work, thus improving business processes and increasing patient satisfaction. Costly errors from duplicate or commingled patient records are eliminated, as are identity errors during patient registration. Finally, PHC cards can greatly improve billing and collection processes, thereby enhancing revenue capture.