The American Hospital Association (AHA), through its subsidiary AHA Solutions, has endorsed Extension’s HealthID, a secure smart card that holds individual patient data for use by hospitals.

Smart cards store medical and demographic information, creating a portable record for individual patients, AHA said.

AHA said HealthID is a pre-packaged solution consisting of an Extension rack-mounted appliance, smart cards and card reader. Future use of the HealthID could include authentication and data sharing with personal health records systems, such as Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, according to the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Extension.