Not heard of them wanting to implant us with a chip, but there is talk and money to implement a system whereby the patient can choose to have their health records downloaded to something like a flash drive. The flash drive can be updated in real time (meaning at the time and point of service), which in theory will prevent unneccessary repeat tests and help to prevent identity/insurance theft and a host of other problems (mixing up of health records of people who have similar names for one)
There are several problems with this idea:
a) cost
For this idea to work, all health facilities will have to buy the hardware and software needed to support all those flash drives. And they have to secure both their own systems and the patient's flash drive. All those facilities will also have to support a nationwide standard that allows every other health facility to read/write all the info on all the flash drives from every other health facility.
Not only will all the facilities have to be compatible will all the other facilities, but all the equipment (like x-ray or MRI machines) will also have to be compatible! They aren't compatible now (this is what my husband does for a living!) and it will take megabuck to get all the different manufacturers to make their products compatible.
b) But first, you have to have a set of standards to control all this. The US? Doesnt' have one! Each state has its own set of policies controlling the flow of health data. And each state is now trying to rewrite those policies in the face of these new regulations, but those policies FIRST have to agree with each state's own laws/constitutions, and then MAYBE they'll figure out a way to make them compatible with one another. Yeah, maybe.
c) Security. The US has no security policies for who gets to view a patients health records. Best practice is that the patient him/herself controls who gets access. That is what HIPAA requires. There are a host of problems associated with requiring individuals to carry around on their person a device that may have 30 years or more of health data. Who is responsible for lost or stolen data? What if a nurse takes a drive from a patient and sets it down for a second to tend to a second patient only to find the drive missing when she comes back for it? Who will be responsible for encrypting the data? The patient? (could you? most people don't even password protect their laptops and we expect them to encrypt a flash drive??? yeah, not gonna happen) The medical facility? (hmm, my children regularly visit 4 different health facilities. Which facility will be responsible)
Even if we put a chip under our skin, all those questions would still have to be answered. Chips like that have to be able to give off a signal in response to a query (they have to be able to communicate with a "master" device). What happens if the device that is querying the chip, just happens to be in the possession of someone trying to hack your data?
This, is not something I would seriously worry about at this time.
There are already systems out there that read hospital bracelets and connect that bracelet to the internal computer records for that patient. But those systems aren't anywhere near ready to go outside the facility door.
