For a country so tapped into the electronic age, the US is woefully behind Europe and Asia in the use of smartcards, which have integrated circuits that secure data and serve it up when fed into specialized reader devices. Smartcards are being used in medical and banking systems everywhere from Tokyo to Warsaw, but in the US they are scarcely used outside of the military and in other small-scale trials.
Washington University's School of Medicine in St. Louis, however, recently initiated a smartcard trial that could be a harbinger of the 21st century doctor-patient relationship.
In the trial, dubbed Womens Card, pregnant women are given a smartcard which contains vital medical information like age, due date, allergies, last prenatal visit, and medications. The doctor can retrieve this information by swiping the patient's card through a reader machine and entering the PIN number.
In addition, a doctor can see the patient's full medical file by using her smartcard to tap into a database stored on an external Web server. The study, which involves 250 pregnant women, will determine whether the card makes it easier and quicker for doctors to access patients' medical records using smartcards. Half of the women will receive cards, while the other half will be treated using traditional paper-and-pen files.
"We're the only place in the US that is doing this with medical records," said Phyllis Wiegraffe, clinical research coordinator for the study. "Paper charts can be lost, and they are occasionally when someone sets it down and forgets it. This way, you can put in a name, and up comes their file."
