U. experts developing health scanner

The era of consumer-driven health care in which medical treatment history, possible illnesses as well as your risk factors — from allergies to genetic markers — will fit on a card the size and as handy as a driver's license is a step closer to becoming reality.

Chemists at the University of Utah are reporting in research published Saturday that they have developed a prototype scanning device that can test for dozens of diseases simultaneously using a magnetic card containing microscopic samples of blood, saliva or urine.

So-called wellness data cards that are about to become the trend in health-care information management allow physicians to track procedures, prescriptions and other details of a person's health profile. Loading the card isn't the problem; it's developing devices to read what's there. Modern medicine produces oodles of data, but advances in information technology that will bring the routine use of medical cards is far outpacing the development of devices that can "read" what's on one.

Scientists at the U., along with colleagues in Arizona, Minnesota and Iowa, are working to bring about the next generation of electronic readers and have developed a prototype of a device that would ultimately make way for another health care trend — "point of care testing."

Having complete information on a patient immediately, including the on-the-spot diagnostic testing the cards allow, is a key element in the new and improved system. Data, both diagnoses and outcomes for procedures rendered, not only become easier to interpret, they will be "transparent," a buzzword of the health care reform effort in Utah and elsewhere but a necessary step if the cost of care is to be controlled and consumers are expected to have much more responsibility for their own well-being.

Such diagnostics advances should eliminate the mountains of paperwork now being produced by the system. The paper trail has gotten so vast and ubiquitous, whether it's open heart surgery or getting a couple a stitches at a minute-clinic, that eight out of 10 health care workers aren't delivering health care at all but are managing claims and processing forms multiple times.

Redundant, expensive and, as often as not, unnecessary testing should also go away as reading devices like the one being developed at the U. and described in two papers published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Analytical Chemistry are perfected.

With filing insurance claims and data management often overwhelming health care management, demand is extremely high for any device that improves point-of-care testing. They will in turn provide faster, more accurate diagnoses. And better diagnoses mean improved treatment outcomes for patients.