CASE STUDY:     Medicalstick

Recently, medicalstick, a leading developer for Medical Data Record Management in Germany, entrusted USB007 to create and deliver a customized, reliable USB Flash Drive solution for its portable medical data management system. The end product consisted of a custom designed USB flash drive casing equipped with high quality flash memory modules adhering to stringent customer-specific hardware and performance requirements.

Assessing the Situation

Misplaced data and illegible handwriting are the primary causes of incomplete medical records, which often lead to duplicate medical tests and unnecessary X-Rays, and may cause delay in medical diagnosis and treatment.

To meet the needs of the healthcare industry and stakeholders, the German authorities recognize the demand for an efficient digital system. As part of a nation-wide German Healthcare reform initiative, a total of 71 million eligible beneficiaries of healthcare insurance in Germany will each receive an electronic smart card, which acts as an access device enabling remote access to the individual's medical records stored on the centralized national medical data exchange system. This ambitious plan to facilitate ubiquitous data exchange between the German Healthcare Industry and its stakeholders is widely described as the largest IT Project in the world, with an estimated cost of 1.6 billion Euros.

However, a centralized solution is not the only option.

The Challenge

Besides the technical hurdles that would need to be overcome in order to implement a centralized national medical data exchange system, polls showed that the public, many doctors and other stakeholders have real concerns about the security of the system and related personal privacy and liberty issues.

Creating The Solution

The proposed Electronic German Healthcare Card (elektronische Gesundheitskarte) in the form of a remote access smart card might still be years away from its actual implementation.

medicalstick has developed an attractive alternative solution using USB007's Custom Designed USB Flash Drive. medicalstick spotted the market gap and the demand for a practical, secure and inexpensive solution which would be recognized and widely accepted by patients and healthcare providers right away!

medicalstick's portable solution enables its customers to take control of their own personal medical data. The solution allows for detailed information on the user's health condition, medications, allergies, surgeries and vaccinations, including records of treatments, high quality x-ray images and doctor reports to be directly archived and stored in a high quality USB flash drive in a secure and centralized manner for convenient retrieval.

The user's essential medical data can now be easily accessed in case of emergency. The user can also decide which data will be available for the next doctor or hospital visit. The data can be accessed in multiple languages enabling doctors and healthcare providers in the user's home country and abroad to provide rapid, efficient and cost-effective diagnosis and appropriate medial treatment.


Delivering the Winning Solution

medicalstick encountered great difficulties in implementing its portable medical data management solution on standard USB flash drives. Generic USB flash drives were not robust enough and did not fulfil medicalstick's technical requirements. Besides, in order to build brand recognition in the competitive German healthcare marketplace, the solution calls for a unique and easily recognizable casing design.

In the course of its advanced marketing campaign, medicalstick strived to fulfil a fast growing number of advanced orders for a functional robust solution as advertised.

Once approached by medicalstick, the USB007 Custom Design/OEM Products Team worked with the customer to establish requirements for the custom casing design and related hardware specifications.

The USB007 OEM/Custom Design Products Team then came up with a specific proposal for the casing material and hardware design, which met all of medicalstick's requirements.

The project proceeded from its initial design phase to a pilot production phase. Within a time frame of only five weeks, the first test pilot samples were delivered to medicalstick for testing and approval. The samples met all of medicalstick's expectations and the project could proceed to the production phase.

Within 14 days, the first large quantity order arrived at medicalstick's headquarters in Germany, and was promptly delivered to its customers.

medicalstick expects to sell 100,000 USB007 customized flash drives six months after the first order was placed.

Developing a unique customer-specific casing design reflecting medicalstick's brand identity and recommending a hardware solution with the best price performance and long-term availability, USB007 has successfully provided a winning custom solution for medicalstick's uniquely designed mass market product.