For more information, contact:
Mark Weiss, CEO
MEMI-TECH, LLC
502-410-5191
www.911medicalid.com

MEMI TECH, LLC Launches Spanish Version of 911 Medical IDTM
to Serve Hispanic Market as Product Expands into
American Southwest and Puerto Rico

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY – August 13, 2010 –MEMI TECH, LLC (My Electronic Medical Information), creator of the 911 Family of ProductsTM, has added a Spanish language translation to its flagship product: the 911 Medical IDTM Card—a portable, electronic personal medical record featuring the world’s thinnest USB connection device.

The addition was prompted by the product’s rapid geographic expansion into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Florida, New York and California through its growing distributor base, as well as its entry into the retail arena through Wal-Mart in Puerto Rico.

“As we’ve grown, so has the demand for 911 Medical IDTM by the Hispanic market,” said CEO Mark Weiss. “Our ultimate goal is to give everyone—every ethnic group, every age group, every socio-economic group—the opportunity to take control of their healthcare and protect themselves against becoming victims of medical error and medical identity theft, one of the fastest-growing frauds today. This is just the first of many language translations to come,” Weiss added.

The 911 Medical IDTM card allows users to enter their health histories and upload important medical records and documents (including Living Wills) onto a credit card-sized carrier that can be opened and viewed in seconds by medical personnel on any computer in the event of a medical emergency. No internet connection is required. The card fits neatly into a wallet like a credit card for ease of transport. Emergency Alert stickers direct first responders to the patient’s card.

The goal, according to Weiss, is to eliminate treatment delays and help medical personnel make more informed decisions about treatment options based on a patient’s health conditions, the prescription drugs they are taking, their known allergens, and more. Armed with the power of information, ER and other medical personnel can help prevent the growing incidence of dangerous drug interactions and other medical mistakes that occur too frequently in emergency rooms.

“As we move toward the time when Electronic Medical Records will be the standard in every hospital, insurance company, and doctor’s office throughout the United States, the Portable Personal Health Record industry will have an important role to play,” said Weiss. “It bridges the gap because, until now, the patient has always been the missing link in our healthcare system. Now people are taking charge of the changes they want to see in emergency rooms and physician offices around the country by taking personal responsibility for their healthcare,” he added.

In addition to 911 Medical IDTM, MEMI Tech, LLC has created three additional products that operate on the same USB card format: 911 My Property eSafeTM, launched in July of 2010, stores personal property records to expedite claims processing and total financial recovery in the event of disaster; 911 My Pet eSafeTM helps facilitate the safe and speedy return of lost pets, and 911 My Financial eSafeTM, which will be launched within the next 60 days, assists in investment tracking and estate planning.

The company sells its 911 Family of ProductsTM through exclusive distributors only, and currently has distributors in more than half of the zip codes in the US and Canada.

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By DEBORAH C. PEEL

I learned about the lack of health privacy when I hung out my shingle as a psychiatrist. Patients asked if I could keep their records private if they paid for care themselves. They had lost jobs or reputations because what they said in the doctor’s office didn’t always stay in the doctor’s office. That was 35 years ago, in the age of paper. In today’s digital world the problem has only grown worse.

A patient’s sensitive information should not be shared without his consent. But this is not the case now, as the country moves toward a system of electronic medical records.

In 2002, under President George W. Bush, the right of a patient to control his most sensitive personal data—from prescriptions to DNA—was eliminated by federal regulators implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Those privacy notices you sign in doctors’ offices do not actually give you any control over your personal data; they merely describe how the data will be used and disclosed.

In a January 2009 speech, President Barack Obama said that his administration wants every American to have an electronic health record by 2014, and last year’s stimulus bill allocated over $36 billion to build electronic record systems. Meanwhile, the Senate health-care bill just approved by the House of Representatives on Sunday requires certain kinds of research and reporting to be done using electronic health records. Electronic records, Mr. Obama said in his 2009 speech, “will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests [and] save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health-care system.”

But electronic medical records won’t accomplish any of these goals if patients fear sharing information with doctors because they know it isn’t private. When patients realize they can’t control who sees their electronic health records, they will be far less likely to tell their doctors about drinking problems, feelings of depression, sexual problems, or exposure to sexually transmitted diseases. In 2005, a California Healthcare Foundation poll found that one in eight Americans avoided seeing a regular doctor, asked a doctor to alter a diagnosis, paid privately for a test, or avoided tests altogether due to privacy concerns.

Today our lab test results are disclosed to insurance companies before we even know the results. Prescriptions are data-mined by pharmacies, pharmaceutical technology vendors, hospitals and are sold to insurers, drug companies, employers and others willing to pay for the information to use in making decisions about you, your job or your treatments, or for research. Self-insured employers can access employees’ entire health records, including medications. And in the past five years, according to the nonprofit Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, more than 45 million electronic health records were either lost, stolen by insiders (hospital or government-agency employees, health IT vendors, etc.), or hacked from outside.

Electronic record systems that don’t put patients in control of data or have inadequate security create huge opportunities for the theft, misuse and sale of personal health information. The public is aware of these problems. A 2009 poll conducted for National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health asked if people were confident their medical records would remain confidential if they were stored electronically and could be shared online. Fifty nine percent responded they were not confident.

The privacy of an electronic health record cannot be restored once the contents are sold or otherwise disclosed. Every person and family is only one expensive diagnosis, one prescription, or one lab test away from generations of discrimination.

The solution is to insist upon technologies that protect a patient’s right to consent to share any personal data. A step in this direction is to demand that no federal stimulus dollars be used to develop electronic systems that do not have these technologies.

Some argue that consent and privacy controls are impractical or prohibitively costly. But consent is ubiquitous in health care. Ask any physician if she would operate on a patient without informed consent.

There is no need to choose between the benefits of technology and our rights to health privacy. Technologies already exist that enable each person to choose what information he is willing to share and what must remain private. Consent must be built into electronic systems up front so we can each choose the levels of privacy and sharing we prefer.

My organization, Patient Privacy Rights, is starting a “Do Not Disclose” petition so Americans can inform Congress and the president they want to control who can see and use their medical records. We believe Congress should pass a law to build an online registry where individuals can express their preferences for sharing their health information or keeping it private. Such a registry, plus safety technologies for online records, will mean Americans can trust electronic health systems.

Privacy has been essential to the ethical practice of medicine since the time of Hippocrates in fifth century B.C. The success of health-care reform and electronic record systems requires the same foundation of informed consent patients have always had with paper records systems. But if we squander billions on a health-care system no one trusts, millions will seek treatment outside the system or not at all. The resulting data, filled with errors and omissions, will be worth less than the paper it isn’t written on.

Dr. Peel, a psychiatrist in private practice, is the founder of Patient Privacy Rights (www. patientprivacyrights.org) and leads the bipartisan Coalition for Patient Privacy.

Source http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703580904575132111888664060.html

There’s a great post today on the Bradford Scott Medical Blog.  Bradford Scott is an IT firm specializing in medical office products and support.  They posted a rundown of what doctor’s offices need to be ready for the switchover to electronic medical records (EMRs), and to qualify for stimulus money designed to help in the switchover.  If you’re in charge of a doctor’s office that hasn’t made the switch, or if you’re wondering why your doctor is still using paper … take a look:

Is your practice ready for Electronic Medical Records and meaningful use?