Wearable Storage Device Keeps Records With Patients
By JULEKHA DASH
(May 07, 2001) Matrevic Data Systems Inc. in DeSoto, Texas, has launched a three-month trial of a wearable storage device that it claims will reduce medical errors by collecting patient information in a single location.
The application development and systems integration firm plans to enlist more than 5,000 patients, each of whom will wear an 8MB flash memory card from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SanDisk Corp. that will store his medical records.
The trial is expected to prove that doctors don't have the information they need to properly treat patients unless they have this type of device, according to John Trahan, Matrevic's vice president of partner development.
Physicians using the device can quickly access a patient's medical history, including current medications, conditions, insurance information and prior injuries, by plugging the memory card into a PC equipped with a flash memory reader, according to Matrevic.
Several Dallas-based medical centers, along with about 50 physicians, will participate in the trial. Trahan said his firm plans to encourage widespread adoption of the technology by persuading health maintenance organizations to pay for the product.
HMOs, policy-makers and corporations have pushed the health care industry to seek ways to reduce medical errors ever since a 1999 report from the Washington-based Institute of Medicine revealed that as many as 98,000 people in the U.S. die annually from medical errors.
Standards Lacking
While the military and the Department of Veterans Affairs have adopted personal storage devices, the concept hasn't gained momentum in the health care industry due to a lack of standards, said Wes Rishel, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. For a storage device "to have much impact, there has to be national adoption of the specific technology and IT standards" for creating a portable health record, he said.
But Trahan said that the technology to date has consisted of smart card devices, which have a limited storage capacity of 70 pages plus a few images. The flash memory card used in the trials can store 6,000 pages of text.
While this storage device could be useful for patients who travel, it presents a host of its own problems, according to Richard Telesca, an analyst at Cambridge-based Giga Information Group Inc.
"The issue with [storage devices] is keeping track of them and not losing them. And if you lose them, do you have a bigger issue with privacy than . . . today?" Telesca said.
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