The keys of success of a health card project: the lessons learned from 9 health cards project

The aim of the paper is to outline the keys to success of the implementation of a specific computer based medical system, the Health Card. The advice suggested is issued from the experience of 9 European and Canadian health card projects. The advice applies to national or local health card projects. No real distinction is made in consideration of the scale of the project: some of the recommendations are more specific to large scale projects, and depend on the government. However, most of the advice can apply to national or local projects. Our concern is "health cards", but a lot of recommendations can also apply to telematics, particularly to the computerized medical record.