November 30th, 2009

Reports the Morning Call:

Lehigh Valley Health Network has got your whole world, or at least your medical records, in the palm of your hands.

With a little black box that uses infrared light to scan vein patterns in palms, the network can identify patients and link the image to a bar code used to pull up medical records.

It may sound more like a new spy gadget, but at LVHN and at several other hospitals across the country, the biometric technology is being used to streamline hospital check-in and combat medical identity theft — or when someone steals another’s ID to get medical treatment.

”It reduces duplicate medical records, which is a big deal, and the patient doesn’t have to give any critical information to the registrar,” said Fred Armbruster, a member of the network’s Wild Idea Team, which brought the technology to LVHN.

Eventually, palm-scan readers also willmake it easier to identify John Doe patients rushed to the emergency room.

”You could be laying there unconscious and we could tell who you are and what allergies you have,” Armbruster said.

Patients would first have to be enrolled in the network program and have their palm scanned before they could be identified in an emergency room. About 1,500 patients have already enrolled as part of the pilot program that just wrapped up in several LVHN diagnostic-care centers, a doctor’s office and a hospital emergency room.

Find out more.