In a great stride toward making medical records electronic, and more uniformly accessible, nine hospitals in New York City are making identification cards available to about 100,00 patients. The cards are designed to have computer chips in them, which is no real surprise: You can buy a teeny tiny memory chip for your palm pilot now that holds as much as a gigabyte of data. So why not create a card or a a jumpstick even for patients?

The cards will contain information about the patients, medical records, allergies, complications, where they live, background, health histories, current medication, etc. The hospitals will be able to check the cards then when patients come in for check-ups or procedures, and all of their medical records will be available immediately. This should reduce a lot of medical errors, reduce time waiting for records to be faxed.

The possibilities for this are endless. I can see a day when all of us carry such a card, beginning with those with chronic health problems who already sport medic-alert bracelets.