Instruments & Equipment

VeriChip Hopes to Give Patient Identification a Shot in the Arm

It's a new wrinkle on positive patient identification. VeriChip Corporation  (NASDAQ:CHIP) of Delray Beach, Florida, began marketing its implantable microchip directly to consumers on April 28 with a direct-to-consumer advertising campaign in South Florida. The chip is the first and only patented, FDA-cleared, human-implantable radiofrequency identification (RFID) microchip.

Verichip's marketing will attempt to educate consumers about the benefits of the implantable microchip.  Advertisements will explain that a patient who has the Health Link chip implanted in his/her arm will allow emergency room doctors, nurses, and other health care providers to have rapid access to his/her personal health record (PHR) via the Web.

This is actually the second time that VeriChip has launched an implantable, patient ID service. The FDA approved the company's application to implant the VeriChip in October 2004 (See The Dark Report, Nov. 1, 2004 ). The question for VeriChip is how quickly the service will catch on among patients and healthcare facilities. That's because VeriChip must enroll hospitals to use the service, then educate consumers about how the service works and which institutions are participating and are equipped to read the patients' microchips in their facilities.

VeriChip's Health Link chip stores a 16-digit identification number and is injected under the skin in the rear portion of the right arm below the shoulder. When a Health Link member presents in an emergency department (ED) unconscious or unresponsive, ED staff will use the Health Link RFID scanner to retrieve the member's identification number and access the patient's secure PHR on the Web.

About the size of a grain of rice, the Health Link microchip is implanted permanently and cannot be lost or stolen, the company said. Implantation is free and can be done in less than 20 minutes without stitches. The service costs patients $9.95 per month.  

The company offers the VeriMed System for free to hospitals. It provides hospitals with a free, handheld RFID reader and gives hospitals access to VeriChip's secure, on-line patient database. VeriChip also provides training and support to emergency department staff and offers microchips for clinical evaluation within medical facilities.

VeriChip Chairman and CEO Scott R. Silverman explained that, to better serve patients, VeriChip has an arrangement with HearUSA, Inc , a company in West Palm Beach, Florida, that operates more than 190 company-owned hearing care centers in California, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ontario, Canada. "This partnership also allows us to offer consumers a convenient location in a professional setting where they can be educated on Health Link and enroll as a member," Silverman said.

As a way to educate consumers about this service, VeriChip is launching a Web site at www.healthlinkinfo.com.

Dark Daily observes that "dogs and cats do it, but will humans?" RFID chips have been implanted in pets by veterinarians for years. In fact, VeriChip's parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, in Delray Beach, Florida, makes a line of RFID chips for animals. Thus, the concept of an implantable identification chip is familiar to most middle-class Americans who own pets. But will consumers be willing to have a microchip implanted in their body as a way to help healthcare providers access their medical records in an emergency?

That's a big question. Anyone working in a clinical laboratory knows well the aversion most humans have to being stuck by a needle. Thus, the idea of having a foreign body inserted into tissue in the upper arm automatically makes this product a tough sell for the average American. On the other hand, the willingness of VeriChip to launch this product into the marketplace is evidence that their marketing studies give them confidence that enough consumers will respond favorably to this product to make it financially successful.
 
Finally, it's been almost four years since The Dark Report last wrote about VeriChip's products. That long period of time shows the type of consumer marketing challenges that VeriChip faces in building support for its imbedded RFID microchip.

Related Articles:

• VeriChip Corporation to Launch Direct-to-Consumer Campaign
• VeriChip goes consumer with its implantable RFID chips; Would you buy?
• VeriChip Begins Marketing to Consumers