When it comes to travel, and good old paper, another way to have medical information handy – and this is just very basic medical information – is to carry a card in your wallet, listing the medications you’re on, along with diagnosis, allergies, physician contact information and next of kin. As part of patient education in our Cardiac and Pulmonary rehab, each patient gets a card and is strongly encouraged to complete it and carry it in his or her wallet. Almost all of our patients do this, have for years, and can attest to how helpful it can be when they travel and must access health care in a different region.

As with any brand new frontier, the verdict is still out, and done right, maybe this on line medical information thing is a good idea. After all, there is more than enough personal financial information out there about me – and so far it hasn’t found its way into the hands of any nasty people yet.  I must say that I do pay $9.99 a month to have it monitored and if unusual activity is detected, I receive an email with a link to what’s occurred.  If this same level of security can be reasonably guaranteed with on line medical information, this new method of health information storage will probably work well for many people. Am I going to log on today and sign up? Nope. I’ll stick with the tried and true paper method for now and dig in my heels until my husband drags me into the next frontier, that is, once they work out the bugs.