The National Health Card, currently implemented as a pilot project collects health encounter data at the point of care, allowing for the construction of the national repository of clinical data and the retrieval of information and knowledge to support health care policy makers in their daily decisions. The development of the system, and the strategies used in its implementation are based in principles that lead to specific technological options; among these, the following should be mentioned: a) the possession of the card is not a condition to access the health services; b) the access to information respects the user's privacy and confidentiality and the code ethics of each health professional category; (c) SUS staff is responsible for safeguarding the database; (d) adoption of open standards and; (e) respect to the work flow and functionality of the health care units. About 13 million people are directly affected by the pilot project that started in 1999 through an international bidding for the National Health Card informatics solution. These paper describes the pilot project from 1999 to 2003, date scheduled for completing the pilot deployment in 44 municipalities of the pilot project. The challenges and the project management complexity are discussed in this paper.
Information system; Health information; Health informatics; Public informatics; Interoperability; Health informatics standards; XML