Could medical information stored on wallet-size cards cure the countrys health-care woes?
When veteran foreign correspondent T. R. Reid set out to write about France’s health-care system for his recently published book, what impressed him most was not the country’s universal coverage. Nor was it the system’s low prices and wide-ranging benefits. Instead, as he explains in The Healing of America, the defining element of the French health-care system is a small green card that each patient carries: the carte vitale. The plastic credit card carries all the essentials of health care: medical records, insurance information, prescriptions, and reimbursements. It is used to check in, identify the patient, and provide the doctor with a complete background on the patient. “For me,” Reid explains, “the carte vitale … became a symbol of what the French have achieved in designing a health-care system to treat the nation’s 61 million residents.” In fact, the only picture that Reid includes in his 277-page book is one of the carte vitale. Much of the buzz about digital future of health
