S.M.A.R.T. Association Unveils LifeMed Card
S.M.A.R.T. Association Inc. recently unveiled its dmart card program called LifeMed Card. The LifeMed Card uses smart card, or chip card technology as its basis.
"We have been investigating and developing Smart card applications for nearly five years. The market is finally ready to embrace Smart cards as a way to streamline access to patient information, to give ownership of medical data to the patient, and to ease the administrative pains between patient and provider,” said David W. Batchelor, CEO of S.M.A.R.T. “We all know how time consuming it is for a patient to have to fill out the same medical forms time and time again. With our LifeMed Card program, not only can a patient get admitted or checked-in faster, first responders like ambulances and EMT's have the ability to gather important medical data -- even when a patient can't respond. That's more than efficient: that's life saving."
The LifeMed Card program takes the best from the Web and marries it with the portability and security of off-line systems.
The program has several components that all work together to save time for the patient, reduce costly errors for the hospital or physician and enhance the overall experience. Patient data includes basic demographic data, insurance information, emergency information, allergies, medical conditions and recent prescriptions.
Information is uploaded by patients through the hospital's Web site and securely encrypted onto a Smart card. When patients come to the hospital, they present the smart card. The smart card information, which can be updated, is then accessed by a hospital's admissions unit and matched to the hospital's data management software. Kiosks at the hospital also allow a patient to pre-register using data stored on the Smart card to populate standardized patient forms. Additionally, ambulances and EMTs will have portable readers that can view the patient's Smart card data in emergency situations.