Records on smartcards [was: [LINK] Thoughts about health cards]

[Dassa]

|> -----Original Message-----
|> From: link-bounces at anu.edu.au
|> [mailto:link-bounces at anu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Malcolm Miles
|> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 12:04 AM
|> To: link at anu.edu.au
|> Subject: Re: Records on smartcards [was: [LINK] Thoughts
|> about health cards]
|>
|> On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 13:09:54 +1100 (EST), you wrote:
|>
|> >If records were primarily held on a personal card, there
|> are several
|> >important problems:
|> >
|> >- if the card is unavailable then treatment can be compromised
|> >(especially in medical emergencies)
|>
|> No better or worse than the current situation where in most
|> emergency cases a patients records aren't available to the
|> ambulance or emergency ward doctors.
|>
|> >- a lot of medical work (and information flows) goes on
|> away from the
|> >patient and therefore their smartcard, e.g. after they've left the
|> >clinic, or when more that one medico needs to access patient
|> >information at the same time, like different hospital departments
|> >- smartcards cannot cope with the megabytes, sometimes gigabytes of
|> >data (note that many hospital imaging systems are going
|> digital; as an
|> >aside, my most recent medical images were given to me on a CD-ROM)
|>
|> I would not expect that a smart card would store x-ray
|> images and other full test results. It should be able to
|> store basic medical data, such as any conditions such as
|> diabetes, current drug regime, their GP's details etc; much
|> like an expanded version of the medical bracelets some people wear.

Here is a radical thought.  How about people being fully responsible for
their own data.  We each carry around our own usb pen or other device that
contains our complete medical/other history.  We control who is allowed to
access it and what data they can view.  No personal data is stored beyond
treatment/interaction time.  The processing occurs on the Doctors/business
systems but all the data remains where it belongs, with the person it is
about.

I've always had a problem with Doctors remaining in control of my medical
history and some of them don't like it if you ask for it or even wish to see
it.  Most times, they will only forward it to another Doctor.

Why should the data be stored and controlled by others.  They only need it
when there is an interaction.  Let the people be responsible for their own
data.

Darryl (Dassa) Lynch