Knowing is Better (with RFID?)

The Canada Health Infoway TV commercial (also appears on my blog as a Google ad!) is really what health consumers are looking for. Implementing it is another story. It is the ehealth mystery of the patient who arrives in the ER in a coma with absolutely no identification. A solution advocated by John Halamka (looke for the study in the New England Journal of Medicine "Straight from the Shoulder") is RFID implants. RFID readers in the ER would scan the patient for the chip. Minimal identification information on the chip would lead to the database with the patient's electronic medical record, i.e., penicillin allergy, diabetic, medications to avoid etc. I am not 100% what the Infoway solution is, but I am not sure it is an RFID one. The thing about RFID is that developments in technology might lead to less invasive ways to create identification tags. For example, take the nanosensor tatto that tracks glucose and sodium via an iphone. In the "Knowing is Better" video the ER doctor asks "Is he on any meds", and a nurse responds "Neighbour says the wife is out of town". On the rerun, when knowing is better, the EMR is already on the screen when he arrives, thus answering the question about medications. One way for the EMR to be on the screen in the ER would be something like an RFID embedded health card, just like Ontario has "enhanced driver's license" for quicker Canada-US border crossing. Otherwise, just scanning a bar code on the health card could do the same thing. What if no wallet?