Mount Sinai Health Cards

According to an article by CNET, Mt. Sinai Medical Center will introduce smart cards that will keep an entire patient’s history. This history includes, "current medications, conditions, allergies and lab results.” The patients, who hold the cards, will also be able to access their information through a special reader and code. Telecommunications giant, Siemens, seems to also be fronting the bill for this whole project. I would guess that this is because if the system works, hospitals around the country will be asking for it with checkbooks open. I think that this might actually work because it is on such a large scale. For it to really be successful, I think it would need to be interoperable with any new system that some other hospital uses, even if the system is not from Siemens. I doubt any hospital wants to deal with systems crashing because of a lack of compatibility or some monopoly on health cards by Siemens. If there is an open standard, then this will change health care around the country. Combined with this and a bunch of other technologies like telemedicine gaining ground, any new doctor in the next 5-10 years will be part of a gigantic revolution in medicine.

Here is a link of a sample card.

Patient Smart Cards get Boost at N.Y. Hospitals [CNET]