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MED-O-CARD:
CEPCO’s Med-O-Card has been chosen to serve the 10 Million Patients of Germany’s third largest Doctors Association, NAV VIRCHOW BUND, as there personal medical data repository.
The NAV decision was confirmed at its annual membership assembly in Berlin, and this concludes months of verification by the German authorities. Previously, the NAV had invested considerable resources in an e-Card or smart card solution. This was found to be technically deficient, expensive and could not guarantee a patients control of their information.
The company has spent 7 years in developing a capability to secure, store and manage in one place all of a patient’s health information, including doctor reports, prescriptions, blood tests, hospital records and X-rays pictures. The unique software is protected by a specially developed security platform.
“The idea first came to me, when I was facing a crippling fight with cancer,” recalled Dr Pollanz. “My doctors required to know all my medical details, immediately. Impossible, of course, in those days.”
The combination of aging populations, soaring costs of health provision and the lack of vital patient data at point of care are forcing health funds and insurance companies to rationalize their management of medical data.
Med-O-Card technology offers significant opportunities around the world for this sector. The unique combination of the software with a server-free USB card will enhance the doctor/patient relation and provide patients with a much improved service.
CEPCO’s Med-O-Card allows doctors to read a patients data without connecting to a central system. The USB card can provide instant medication-risk and medication-diagnosis analysis. The operating system ensures viruses will infect neither the card nor a doctor’s laptop. And the
Med-O-Card grants the patient absolute control over his medical and lifestyle data.
The decision of the NAV doctors was also influenced by reports in Germany that 58.000 patients might be dying each year due to wrong medication in hospitals. In Israel, the figure is put at 3,000 deaths annually and in the USA at 100.000,-. These are formidable figures need to be addressed instantly. The NAV informed
CEPCO how it is fully aware that a significant percentage of these tragedies result from incorrect conclusions based on insufficient knowledge.
The NAV are not the only group chasing CEPCO’s Med-O-Card. “The decisions of the NAV VIRCHOW BUND have brought leads from other players in Germany who are aware that ultimately data will and must end up in the hands of the patient. And there are similar laws in Switzerland, the UK, France and other EU nations, which demand that doctors, hospitals and health funds will provide data management service so the patient becomes the sole owner of his data.
To illustrate the strengths of CEPCO’s technology, attention is directed towards the disaster faced by the National Health Service in the UK. It was recently reported that there was a breach of security concerning the data of several “VIP patients”. This followed the loss of 400,000 smart cards that hold access keys to the national health grid. With
CEPCO’s application, neither the break in nor the theft could threaten the patients’ data integrity. A BBC report dated Nov. 29. 2007 concludes: "Experts are concerned that more stringent safeguards might not work. Perhaps, smaller local databases that actually link up, but with explicit patient consent, so that would put the patient in control."
Med-O-Card is actually exactly that requested ‘local database’. The term ‘local’ is reduced to the individual patient whose personal data base is installed on his
Med-O-Card. Only when the patient pulls out the card from his wallet and enters it into the PC whilst sitting opposite his doctor a data-access and an eventual data-transfer can be originated.
There are also signs in the USA that the trend towards gigantic Giga-Networking starts reversing. More and more HMO’s demand solutions that enable the patients to hold all their data on one mobile device. Once the pateint has all of his data, the management of a patient’s health programs become much more efficient, not only for the patient himself but also for the supporting Health Programs of the various HMOs.
CEPCO will commence its engagement with the doctors and patients of the NAV by January 2008 through a regional pilot scheme. By 2011, it is intended that at least 10% of NAV’s > 10 Mio patients will have been issued with cards.
CEPCO is currently negotiating to expand its operational base to all over Europe and the USA. That demands a corporate involvement with potential strategic partners.
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