Suresh Ponnudurai (right), CEO of MalaysiaHealthcare, showing reporters the iPHER: a portable device anyone can use to store their basic medical information

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USB devices can now aid doctors in medical emergencies and make it easier for patients to carry their records around.

CONSIDER This : You are travelling in a foreign country when a sudden, sharp chest pain stops you in your tracks. Your vision dims and you lose consciousness.

A good Samaritan rushes you to the nearest hospital, but all the doctor in the emergency room knows when he finds your passport is your name and where you come from.

In this situation, what would come in handy is a brief medical history, a list of medications you are on, your allergies and perhaps, your blood type. When there is no such data available, the doctor has to make his best assessment based on his observations of your condition and some basic laboratory tests.

But what if you can store all your medical records in a portable device that allows your doctor to connect it to his computer and access your basic information?

Your doctor can have a snapshot of your current condition and proceed to help you without having to repeat standard tests. He or she will know what medications to avoid if you are allergic, and make better judgements as they take into account your pre-existing medical conditions.

This applies too when people are travelling to another country to seek medical help, says Suresh Ponnudurai, CEO of a Malaysian medical travel facilitator MalaysiaHealthcare, during his presentation on healthcare travel strategies at the Healthcare Tourism Congress held in Kuala Lumpur recently.

“Imagine if you didn't have your hard copy of your treatment with you to bring home. And even if we had, what do we do with our reports and CDs? We shelve them and forget about them,” he adds during an interview shortly after.

A few decades ago, when computers were still finding their way into doctors' desk and emergency rooms, if we wanted to keep our medical records, we have to record it almost entirely on paper, or other forms in which they come in. For instance, blood test reports are printed on paper, X-rays are given to patients as A3 (paper) sized negatives and videos of your scans are recorded on CDs.

But now, with computers and the Internet, we can store our medical information online through Internet-based personal health records, which we can access anywhere in the world with Internet access and a password.

However, carrying all your medical records around can be difficult and the relatively low Internet penetration rate in many parts of Southeast Asia may make those records inaccessible in places without Internet connectivity, says Suresh.

With this in mind, MalaysiaHealthcare introduced a portable device called the iPHER (short for Individual Personal Health Electronic Record) as part of the services they offer to healthcare travellers to Malaysia as well as consumers here in Malaysia in October last year.

The iPHER, a USB drive that comes in the shape and size of a credit card, is one of the first USB devices made available in Malaysia.

Developed and patented in the US by medical technology expert Dr Naomi Melvin, the iPHER is designed to carry basic medical information of its holders, such as their medications, lab tests, immunisations, dental records and pictures or videos of the scans they went through.

“It is a device that integrates the software (to run it on a computer) within itself. It is able to carry the information in it in a securely encrypted format, and, you can update it yourself with the latest medical data. Also, you will be able to present that data in several languages, including German, French, Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin,” says Suresh.

As the Internet is not needed to access the information inside, all you need to do is plug the device into a computer which runs on a Microsoft operating system.

During emergencies, healthcare providers can access your basic information – your name, nationality, physician's details, next of kin, and allergies. To gain access to more information, your healthcare provider will have to call a number to ask a person you trust with the password for it. You can also back up your information to a server and reload it onto a new card if you lose your card, Suresh explains.

Put simply, portable health record devices like the iPHER are like the black boxes in airplanes. The only difference is that it records health information and we (the owners) are fully responsible of making sure the relevant information stored inside is up to date.

While the use of the device has yet to catch on locally, Ponnudurai sees it as the future of how medical information is going to be carried, healthcare travellers or otherwise.

“In four to five years from now we may all be using one of these devices, and the iPHER is only one of them,” he says.

“You don't need to be sick to carry this card. Because it may save your life if someone picked it up while you are unconscious.”

> For further information about iPHER, visit www.malaysiahealthcare.com .

- By LIM WEY WEN