A new form of medical records for the space flight program

摘要

The optical card was developed as a solution to organizing a medical record in NASA's health care system, with facilities around the world. It is a permanent patient record which eliminates computer records, magnetic strips, or other techniques, and it must be easily carried and easily read and updated. The optical card is the size and shape of a standard credit card. Information can be placed on the card by means of a milliwatt laser beam which places digital information on the card in the form of dimples in the plastic surface induced by intense heat. The dimples are less than five microns in diameter and are spaced a few microns apart. The dimples are protected by a plastic over the writing surface. Some 2 million bytes (8-bit) can be placed on each card. Medical information is placed on the card in a highly structured format which permits data selection and organization by the software. Many screens present the data in the form of diagnoses, treatments, problem lists, drug lists, socioeconomic data, etc. and the data can be recalled in chronological or other sequences. Additional screens can be designed for special data.