Patent ID: 8195480

Claim:
In a system in which a person maintains his or her medical history in a portable, hand carried nonvolatile memory device comprising machine-readable memory having software comprising machine-executable instructions constituting a program executable by a general computer for (i) storing medical records in a secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device, (ii) updating the medical records in the secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device, and (iii) providing access to the medical records in the secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device, a method for recovering that person's medical history in the event of loss, destruction, or damage of the device, the method comprising the steps of: (a) maintaining a backup copy of the secure database externally to the hand carried device, which backup copy is accessible via an Internet computer; (b) accessing the backup copy via the Internet; (c) copying the accessed backup copy to a replacement hand carried device, which replacement hand carried device includes software which comprises a program executable by a general computer for (i) storing medical records in a secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device, (ii) updating the medical records in the secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device, and (iii) providing access to the medical records in the secure database in the machine-readable memory of the portable, hand carried memory device; (d) wherein said steps (h) and (c) are performed using a general computer.