Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Band of Life: USB Bracelet Carries Patients' Health Info
Filed under: Public Health
It's time to move those medical ID wristbands into the 21st century. Since lasers don't seem like a useful addition, what about the next most useful thing of the 21st century? Of course we're talking about the USB interface. The Band of Life is a wristband with a USB memory key built in that stores a patient's medical information including prescriptions and insurance info. From their site...
Speaks for you when you can't speak for yourself. Band Of Life automatically activates on any computer once it's plugged into the USB port. The translator gives your caregiver the opportunity of seeing your emergency medical information in any of four different languages. English, Spanish, French and Italian.Highly Visible. The Band Of Life is red in color and embossed on the outside of the band with "Emergency Medical Information". It's not out of plain sight in your pocket or keychain.
User Friendly. The Band Of Life requires no buttons to push, no 800 numbers to call, no software to load and no special computer or scanner to activate it.
Privacy Assured. Our privacy statement is available on this site but....You put in your personal information. You submit that information to an encrypted software package. None of what you have imputed is ever seen by any personnel. That file is downloaded onto a computer and added to a wristband. The only identification available to us is your mailing address. The file is automatically destroyed after it's put onto the band. When you update your information a new set of files are written and the same process repeats.
Intake Form. Doctor's offices and hospital admitting are very busy places. Personnel has to be allocated to take the information of new patients. This takes a lot of time. Use you Band Of Life as your admitting information. There is a computer available in all of these offices. Instruct the intake person to just plug your Band Of Life into their USB port and print out your information. It's simply, it's time saving but most of all it's cutting edge technology.
World Wide Travel. The Band Of Life has filed for patent protection for it's unique translation ability. It's one of a kind! The United States Passport Office has cautioned people traveling abroad to carry their medical information. Although many countries speak English, don't count on small towns or provinces. In this age of computers, they are everywhere. Anyone having used computers at all will recognize a USB plug and knows where it would go in their computer.
Not bad for $25. Originally we were ready to point out how you could build this yourself with a giveaway USB key, a bracelet and a text file (that you could translate into the necessary languages via Babelfish)...but then we realized our grandmother probably couldn't, so once again...not bad for $25.
More from Band of Life (beware of annoying Flash intro)
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examples: <b>Bold</b> <i>Italic</i>
