Wearable health records are not a brand new concept. We’ve written about Code4Armour‘s wearable device, a wristband that costs $20, plus you pay $48 a year for the subscription service. We also covered Khushi Baby, a pendant worn on the neck distributed in an expanding pilot test to babies in remote areas of northern India to store medical and vaccination records in a region where the presence of medical personnel is sporadic.
Idol Memory, a Riverside, California-based firm that makes cloud-based consumer identification and business cards, has introduced Wrixo. Wrixo is a wristband medical and health record storage wristband. The stored contents can be accessed by scanning QR code on the wristband or tapping the band with a Near Field Communications (NFC)-enabled smartphone. Information is added to the wristband by NFC tapping or by entering information via a computer on the customer’s account in the cloud. No battery is required to store or to share the information with first responders or medical personnel via the HIPAA-compliant Wrixo wristband. Wrixo recently launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. The Wrixo standard cloud edition will have a $29 list price when it ships, which is currently estimated for November 2017 – the Indiegogo price is $19. The standard version comes with a free lifetime membership. A premium Wrixo edition, for a $6 monthly subscription, allows users to manage doctor visits and medical documents and access prescription information and delivery service.
According to the Wrixo website, the company has the molds ready for efficient mass production, depending on the success of the crowdfunding campaign. The concept of easy access to important medical data for responder and professional use is compelling, but it remains to be seen if a wearable with a subscription is a viable business model. Kushi Baby is a funded program that continues, but Code4Amour’s website is no longer active.
