Medical information management system

Claim 1

A medical information management system for recording a patient's personal medical information onto a recording medium to manage the medical information, said recording medium being a portable card-like medium independently provided for the patient, said medical information management system comprising: the recording medium including an optical information recording area, and an integrated circuit memory area for storing electronic information; a read/write drive for removably attaching thereto said recording medium to read and write information from and to at least said optical information recording area and said integrated circuit memory area, said read/write drive including an optical head for reading and writing optical information from and to the optical information recording area, a carrier mechanism for loading said recording medium on a carrier table and moving the loaded recording medium relative to said optical head, and a coupler section for coupling electronic information to be read and written from and to the integrated circuit memory area of said recording medium, so that reading and writing of the optical information from and to the optical information recording area can be conducted simultaneously with reading and writing of the electronic information from and to the integrated circuit memory area; a controller for controlling said read/write drive so as to execute control to write any of character information, image information and sound information, corresponding to a morbid state of the patient, into the optical information recording area as the medical information, control to read out said medical information written in the optical information recording area, control to write a predetermined part of said medical information into the integrated circuit memory area and control to read out the predetermined part of said medical information written in the integrated circuit memory area; a display device for visually displaying the character information and image information contained in said medical information read out by said controller; and a reproduction device for audibly reproducing the sound information contained in said medical information read out by said controller, wherein said coupler section includes a first transmitter/receiver embedded in said carrier table and a second transmitter/receiver embedded in said recording medium for communication with said first transmitter/receiver in such a manner that a relative positional relationship between said first transmitter/receiver and said second transmitter/receiver remains unchanged even when said carrier table is moving for reading and/or writing of said optical information and thereby said coupler section is allowed to communicate a signal indicative of information to be read or written under an always constant communication condition.