Innovating Medication Reconciliation: Ideas from a Business Card Company
Moo Cards and NFC Technology
Moo Cards, one of my most favorite companies for creating modern stationary, just released a new line of business cards today that incorporate NFC technology. The premise is that these cards are capable of displaying information that the user chooses to share on a partners smartphone. Such ideas include:
- Digital business card
- Shared website link
- Sharing social networks (e.g. LinkedIn)
- Promote a product/app/idea
- Share a playlist
- Video chat portal
- Share directions with Citymapper
Quite cool huh? Some may say this is a gimmick, but I think it's a good bridge in an era where we can't get away from business cards as part of formal decorum, but our need to digitalize practically everything. I personally would like to create a few cards to test some ideas and concepts, such as a landing page for my website, or even a video to open up with introductions.
In any event, the one thing I thought that may be interesting is how we could perhaps use these cards or similar technology for medication reconciliation or patient medication records. Most patients get discharged on a list of medications, or leave the doctors office with a paper record of sorts on what they are supposed to take. For me, I routinely have patients who record their medications on a piece of paper, or some notebook, that they routinely have to update. What if with a tap of a card we could have a piece of information they could keep updated? I had a similar idea when I saw the 'Coin' Card released a few years back, as a way for patients to keep their medications record in order.
The Concept
So that's the premise. I'm pulling this from my experience of patients that use notecards and printouts to record their medication list. I admire the patients that put the diligence into such apt record keeping, though often the papers and forms eventually are written over and over again they become a mess, and a new one needs to be created.
A medium such as a card could be a solution as a way to open a portal to patient records, and shared at multiple locations, and easily stored in a wallet or purse. That being the case, there are a bunch of issues, such as patient information, data sharing, and how to integrate such data across multiple EHRs and digital records.
Let me know your thoughts, would love to hear them!