Explaining Success and Failure of National Health Smart Card Project Implementation in Taiwan

The essence of the matter behind the health smart card is a tug of war between the complexity of the project and the managerial sophistication, and the project is doomed if the managerial capacity falls short of the project's complexity. The National Health Insurance (NHI) smart card project in Taiwan has been noted as the pioneer of the world. Its first NHI smart card was issued in 2002 and finished until 2004. More than 20 millions population which means almost whole population already received an IC card. Contents in this card include both personal information and medical records, but there is not all available in the beginning. However, for building an online environment promotion of e-medical care services, the project decided to enforce this new technology and asked health providers to support to fill in the medical care information include diagnosis and treatment from 2006. This study investigated the key stakeholder of health service providers to show how they can aid in e-health implementation and provide collaboration for medical decision making vis-à-vis the national project. In order to obtain the reasonable explanation, a research approach, which has been based on the survey, existent document of project and meeting participant, is proposed. Through the integration of research methodology, the reasons of the success and failure of the project is crystal, which will facilitate the national project implementation strategy, is built. Based on the case study, results showed that it is not the technology that mattered but it is how the project comes together that mattered and also the human factors that mattered.