It’s good for what ails you on a trip

NO one expects to get sick on vacation. But some travelers fall ill or become injured while away from home, some severely enough to require medical care.

Carrying your medical information can increase the chances of getting effective treatment, experts say, because the doctor at your destination can familiarize himself quickly with it.

What information should you have? It depends on your health status, said Drs. Kathleen Cowling, an emergency physician at Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, Mich., and Michael Herbst, medical director of the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital, Santa Monica.

Everyone should consider having this information on their person, the two doctors say:

* Name and contact information of your primary-care doctor.

* Medical insurance information and contact details.

* Immunization records, including travel immunizations.

* List of your current prescription medications, including generic and brand names, especially if you are traveling internationally. Brand names differ from country to country.

“In foreign countries, the same drug can go by a different name,” Herbst says, “and it can be surprisingly difficult to figure out which is which.”

Also note the dose, in milligrams, of each pill and how often you take it, Herbst says.

List relevant surgeries you have had. You probably wouldn’t include a tonsillectomy when you were 10, Herbst says, but you should include procedures that still affect your health.

If you have chronic conditions, you need to tote more specifics, such as:

* Information about allergies to medicines, plants, latex and other chemicals and products.

* Information about other chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or heart problems. Note a description of the problem, when it was diagnosed and a description of the treatment.

* If you have a heart condition, a copy of your last electrocardiogram.

* If you have a pacemaker or defibrillator, information about when and why it was implanted, along with the anufacturer and model.

* If you have an artificial heart valve, information about when it was placed and why.

Carrying such information could be valuable, Herbst says, particularly “if you have had a complex medical past.”

Although Herbst and Cowling consider it sufficient to type or write down the list of medical information, high-tech options abound. In the last two years, several portable systems have come on the market. Some devices store medical data on a flash drive that can be carried on your key chain or worn around the neck; the data stored on the drive can be accessed via computers or sometimes cellphones with Internet capability.

Among the recent options:

The Portable Health Profile: You pop a mini CD into your home computer to enter information about allergies, other medical conditions, your EKG, lab reports, X-rays and CT scans. Those with diabetes can input glucose tracking. The mini CD is small enough to fit in a wallet or purse, says Rob Van Dorselaer, president of Critical Access in Maryville, Tenn., which makes the device. An accompanying USB flash drive can be worn like medical jewelry or attached to a key chain. The capacity is 64 megabytes. It’s sold via the Internet (www.portablehealthprofile.com) for $49.95 or $99.95 for up to five family members.

ViRec: Up to 64 megabytes of information can be stored on the ViRec device, says Roy Whittington, spokesman for manufacturer Vital Record Corp. in San Diego. Consumers read the documentation CD, fill in the information and the input is then recorded onto a thumb-size computer storage device. You can put the device on a key chain or around your neck. “You can also put the medical data on a cellphone,” Whittington says. ViRec is sold via the Internet (www.vitalrecord.net) for $44.95 plus $10 for the cellphone feature.

VitalKey: VitalKey uses a USB “thumb” drive that slips onto your key chain. The company builds a database from information you provide, says Tom Blue, chief operating officer for Vital Data, the Richmond, Va., company that sells VitalKey. For a $205 subscription ($445 for a couple or $495 for a family of up to two adults and four children), Vital Data company representatives interview customers over the phone, Blue says.

Customers sign a medical record release and VitalKey requests medical records. It’s put on the thumb drive, and can be used on any computer that has a USB port. Capacity is 512 megabytes and updating is frequent, Blue says. “We e-mail ... every month to see if anything has changed,” he says. The device is sold via the Internet (www.vitalkey.com). The website is loaded on the key, so you can use an Internet browser to read the data on it offline, Blue says.

VeriChip: A microchip the size of a grain of rice, VeriMed’s Verichip stores information and is inserted under the skin. Each chip has a 16-digit identification number, and more than 1,200 emergency healthcare providers authorized by the company can use a scanner to identify you and access your information via a secure online database. Costs for insertion are about $200. The chip is made by VeriChip Corp. in Delray Beach, Fla. Annual costs range from $20 to $80, depending on whether you choose a basic edition or a more comprehensive one, which includes a personal health record. The basic edition includes identification information, emergency contacts, physician contacts, allergy details, advance directives and medical facilities. The complete package also includes a personal health record. It’s sold via the Internet (www.verimedinfo.com).

kathleendoheny@earthlink.net