Australian health organisations are watching a US study involving three Texas hospitals and 34 Health Maintenance organizations with great interest, as the outcome could have a bearing on the health record card which will ultimately be introduced in this country.

The study involves the first public use of SanDisk Corporation's (Sunnyvale, CA. www.sandisk.com) "P-Tag" flash memory card, the industry's first wearable storage device for the health care market. More than five thousand patients in the Dallas, Texas area will have their complete medical records stored on the small 8-megabyte P-Tags.

Information stored on the P-Tags will include drugs being currently taken, drug reaction histories, physical exam reports, allergies and allergic reactions, vaccinations, previous injury history, blood type and even compressed images of X-rays, CAT scans and MRIs. Various levels of security can be built into the cards. A 8MB P-Tag can store two hours of recorded voice or 6,000 double-spaced pages of text

P-Tags weigh two grams and are the size of a postage stamp. Most patients will wear them around their neck or keep them on a key chain. Doctors participating in the study will each have a P-Tag reader connected to their computer. P-Tags do not need a battery to retain data and they are expected to have a lifetime of more than 100 years.

Patient information also will be stored in doctors' computers to ensure that medical information is retained if a P-Tag is lost.

Officials at Matrevic Data Systems Inc (www.matrevic.bigstep.com), the Dallas-based company that has organised the project and provided the software, believe the trials will demonstrate how the P-Tags can save lives and deliver medical care more quickly, efficiently and inexpensively.