Patients can carry records on secure smartcard

Patients in London can now have their medical histories handy wherever they are, by uploading them onto a new USB plug-in smartcard called the Health eCard.

Buying the card should enable patients to show their records to any medical professional, saving time and improving consultations when their notes are not available.

Jul Kornbluth, managing director of HealtheSystems, which developed the card, told E-Health Insider that he decided to build it after he read an EHI story about an Australian paperless hospital two years ago.

He said: “When I read the piece, I realised that there should be a way for patients to be able to access their medical records. If you have your history handy, it can save a lot of repetition [of the history] to every hospital consultant you need to see.” He said having the records available could also prevent x-rays and other tests needing to be re-taken when notes hadn’t arrived.

“We really felt something should be done. Although personal health records is a big initiative at present, it seemed to us that other projects [to deliver them] had gone to sleep and were complicated. The Health eCard empowers patients and enables them to get involved in their own healthcare.”

The team worked hard to ensure that the card had watertight security and hired the security team who worked on the Eurofighter project to build the security system.

GP surgeries are given two small boxes, one that holds the surgery card, capable of holding up to 50,000 records on it and another to store cards to sell to patient, which links to the patient’s records through their unique ID number.

The master records card also acts as a firewall ensuring no viruses can affect the GP system and prevents patients from altering their own records.

Both patient and doctor view the data via a special secure reader/writer which encrypts the data and ensures it does not stay on a PCs memory. The card is protected using a pass phrase which only the patient should know – only when that is entered can a record be viewed. If an incorrect phrase is entered too many times, the card will stop working and a new one will have to be purchased.

The card works in any PC that has a USB port. It is also compatible with all current GP systems.

The system was ‘alpha’-tested at one GP surgery. Kornbluth told EHI: “In our initial testing, we found that a variety of people wanted to buy a card, from 80-year-olds to families, and there was a huge rush on the first day from travellers to obtain it.”

Loading records onto the card takes up to two minutes, which includes the GP receptionist verifying the patient’s identity. Patients must produce proof of identity such as their passport or driving licence before the receptionist will enter their unique ID into the system and start the 30-second download.

“We have worked extensively with doctors to analyse how to present all data, in a way that is understandable to the patient. So we grouped all the blood pressure readings together and lipid statistics and so on. It empowers the patient to let them know what is happening with their health.”

GPs are entitled to charge a £10 download fee to card-holders under the Data Protection Act, agreed by the General Medical Council as a non-NHS fee. The total price of the card should be “no more than a can of petrol” says Mr Kornbluth.

Dr David Krasner, medical director at HealtheSystems Ltd, explains: “As a working GP, I am aware of many situations where it would be a major advantage to my patients to have immediate access to all the medical information that is stored about them on my surgery computer.

“For instance, patients who are visited by an out-of-hours doctor who does not know them, or are seen in a hospital out-patient department where their notes have gone missing, or need to see a doctor urgently out of town or abroad, could use their Health eCard to recreate their records instantly and achieve maximum benefit from a consultation that might otherwise have been frustratingly incomplete or, worse, unsafe.

“Patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension could use their Health eCard to learn about and keep track of their conditions and become more positively engaged in their healthcare. Whenever they need to see a consultant, all their information would be immediately to hand on the card.

“In an emergency, immediate access to the data stored on the card could be of crucial importance.”

HealtheSystems hopes to roll out the system nationally in March and are writing to surgeries in the UK to inform them about it. Kornbluth says the card should not cost patients “more than a tank of petrol.”