World Medical Card
World Medical Card is product and registered trademark belonging to World Medical Center a Norwegian Company, headquartered in Bergen, Norway. The company's business is Health Information Technology, more specifically a supplyer of Personal health records.
History
World Medical Center was established in 1998 to create a system to improve the safety for people in a situation requiring immediate medical treatment by a doctor who is not familiar with the person’s medical history.
In cooperation with specialists in acute medicine and the University of Bergen, the company developed an international, personal medical card (World Medical Card) to allow individuals to carry essential medical information with them at all times and everywhere in the world.
Early experimental versions included Smart card and Data matrix versions, but were abandoned as they required specific infrastructure to be installed at the facility receiving the patient in order to be useful. The latest generation of cards include the information in printed letters, but is only accessible by physically [...] open the card. This also reveals an emergency code that allows the medical professional access to a read-only web profile describing the card holder.
Later on the product portfoilo was extended to also include a web based Personal health record, allowing the user to manage personal information while also serving as the source of information for producing the card, and a mobile application.
The company has been a pioneer in promoting the use of ICD-10 and ATC codes as defined by the World Health Organization for processing all medical data.
Current product
The product "World Medical Card" as it is offered today is composed of three main elements:
- An online web based health profile that allows the user to add and edit personal health data ("onWeb")
- A wap based mobile phone application that gives access to the same data, translated to a language of choice ("onMobile")
- A sealed physical card containing a condensed summary of the holder's health information ("onCard")
The product's main purpose is to allow the user to manage and access vital personal data such as:
- diagnoses
- medical history
- medications
- allergies and adverse [...] reactions
- vaccinations
- emergency contacts
- important personal documents (by upload)