Medical records stored on smart cards
30 June, 2008
category: Health
Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York is issuing smart cards to correctly identify patients and make sure they have the correct medical record, according to a New York Sun article.
The cards have a picture of the patient and can hold 33-pages of medical data. So far 2,000 patients have cards and the hospital eventually hopes to get them 10,000 patients. The first cards were issued to patients at Elmhurst Hospital Center, a public hospital in Queens affiliated with Mount Sinai, and to patients at Mount Sinai Hospital of Queens and Settlement Health, a clinic affiliated with Mount Sinai.
As electronic medical records become more prevalent hospitals want to ensure that the patient matches up correctly with the record. “We may have a Juan Gonzalez in the hospital today,” Mr. DuPont said. “I can do a search and we’ll probably come up with 500 patients in our database whose name is Juan Gonzalez.”
Read the full story here.