Date: November 6, 2003

Presenter: Henry Zach

Affiliation: Health Data Card - www.healthdatacard.com

The guest speaker for this meeting was Henry Zach of Health Data Card. Mr. Zach discussed the application of smart card technology for personal medical information storage. Smart card technologies are credit cards with on-board memory storage. They have been around for over a decade with many real-world applications making logical sense. The technology has been gaining ground in certain vertical markets, however, it has not quite gained enough traction to reach a critical mass of users. There is no question the need for a personal medical storage media exists - getting into popular use is the challenge.

Health Data Card (HDC) is changing the usage issue with some interesting approaches to the marketplace. HDC is developing a national network of distributors to sell the cards. They are giving away the software to read the cards to promote usage. Also, the cost of buying the card reader has dropped to the $30-50 range - further reducing the barrier to entry.

Installation by local hospitals has been established (see Omaha World-Hearld October 8 article). Use by government and national insurance companies would certainly tip the scale towards critical mass. We all hope this local Omaha company becomes a success story - pushing adoption of a new technology is never an easy task, but when it becomes popular - it's really profitable.