Health card systems world-wide face many problems such as a lack of standardization, poor acceptance by the medical community, inadequate software, insufficient on-card storage capacity, high implementation cost, and social and legal issues related to the privacy and security of patient information.

In addition, health care researchers and health care professionals have had increasing interest in the development of Internet-based solutions in health care, casting doubt on the future of IC card systems. However, IC cards used in conjunction with Internetbased health information systems may be more viable than either system alone.

We conducted a world-wide survey to explore the possibilities of such a combined system. Our analysis shows that there is considerable knowledge of the concept of Internet-based health care services among the professionals of IC card projects. In addition, our results indicate that IC cards could play a major role in health care systems as authorization keys that permit access to health information.