Card Briefs: Drexler Providing Laser Cards to South Korea

Drexler Technology Corp. has a contract to supply laser-encoded cards to South Korea.

Drexler said it is supplying LaserCard reader-writers and system software to the South Korean government for its health card program.

Drexler supplied equipment and 5,000 optical memory cards for a trial that began in March. The company received a subsequent order worth $48,000 to be shipped by next month.

A trial of the Citizen's Health Card system started March 3 with three health clinics in Suwon City, near Seoul. Cards were issued to 5,000 people ages 6 to 65 for the trial. The government plans to expand the program and build a national health medicine computer network by 1999.

Each card holds 6.6 megabytes of information, including video imaging, X-ray, health insurance, diagnostics and examination results, medical histories, and drug reaction information. The cards can be read with laser interpretation equipment.

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