VitalKey In the News

The Pink Key® and Susan G. Komen for the Cure Richmond Affiliate Announce Agreement

VitalKey Introduces the Pink Key

New device provides "key" to breast cancer survivorship

The Pink Key® and Susan G. Komen for the Cure Richmond Affiliate Announce Agreement

10 percent of Key proceeds to local group

RICHMOND, VA (November 19, 2007) - The Pink Key, a personal health records tool for breast cancer patients, survivors and their families, announced today an agreement with the Richmond Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, under which 10 percent of Pink Key revenues would be provided to Komen for qualifying Pink Key subscriptions.

The Pink Key provides and regularly updates a person's complete medical records and houses them on a computer "thumb drive" that can be carried on a key ring and is accessible at all times by patients and health-care professionals. It is produced by Vital Data LLC, which also makes the VitalKey, a health-records thumb drive serving the needs of general consumers.

All VitalKeys, including the Pink Key, can be lifesavers if their holders are ever involved in an emergency care situation and unable to speak or otherwise communicate with medical professionals who are not familiar with their medical records, medications, allergies and other special medical needs. VitalKeys contain all such records and may be accessed from virtually any computer; Internet access is not required to open a VitalKey.

The Pink Key offers these benefits and many additional capabilities, under the direction of its inventor, Dr. James Khatcheressian, breast cancer specialist and health services researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center in Richmond. Under the agreement, Dr. Khatcheressian will provide articles and breast-cancer research updates to people using the Komen web site and recipients of the organization's newsletters. He also will answer e-mail questions submitted through the site, located at www.komenrichmond.org.

"As we gear up for next year's Richmond-Race for the Cure®, next May 10, we are happy to work with the Pink Key and to provide our supporters with access to Dr. Khatcheressian's expertise," said Judy Adams, Executive Director of the Richmond Affiliate, which serves people throughout central Virginia and is the largest Komen Affiliate in the state. A special user code on the Komen web site will entitle new Pink Key subscribers to participate in the revenue-sharing agreement.

"Like our VitalKey, the Pink Key is an invaluable tool to help people navigate the increasingly complex, and expensive, world of health care," said Tom Blue, VitalKey's chief operating officer. "This agreement with Komen will help us bring the Pink Key to more people and help support additional breast cancer research as well."

For further information about the Pink Key or VitalKey, go to www.vitalkey.com or call 877 VITALKEY (877-848-2553).

Media contact:

Philip Moeller
Managing Consultant, Pink Key Initiative
pmoeller@vitalkey.com
804.822.6605

VitalKey Introduces the Pink Key

RICHMOND, Va., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ - VitalKey, a leader in the rapidly growing field of personal health records, announced its introduction of the Pink Key, a personal health records tool for breast cancer patients, survivors and their families. Like its flagship VitalKey, the Pink Key provides and regularly updates a person's complete medical records and houses them on a computer "thumb drive" that can be carried on a key ring and is accessible at all times by patients and health-care professionals.

More Americans die each year from medical errors than from breast cancer, colon cancer, and vehicle accidents combined. To ensure that medical caregivers have accurate, current information - when and where they need it - a group of Virginia doctors invented the VitalKey, a medical records management service that provides consumers with a digital copy of their actual medical records. They've expanded on these capabilities with the new Pink Key.

"Like our VitalKey, the Pink Key is an invaluable tool to help people navigate the increasingly complex, and expensive, world of health care," said Tom Blue, VitalKey's chief operating officer. "With multiple physician and specialist relationships, and frequent changes in treatment options and protocols, breast cancer patients, survivors and their families face especially daunting challenges that the Pink Key was designed to help solve."

The Pink Key offers these benefits and many additional capabilities, under the direction of its inventor, Dr. James Khatcheressian, breast cancer specialist and health services researcher at the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center in Richmond, Virginia. He authored the definitive review of supportive care strategies for breast cancer patients in Oncology and is lead author for the American Society of Clinical Oncology's practice guidelines for breast cancer follow-up - the national practice guideline source for U.S. oncologists. Dr. Khatcheressian also has worked extensively with cancer patients at Massey to provide them helpful informational tools and developed a web-based concept for these tools that led to his partnership with VitalKey and joint development of the Pink Key.

Special features of the Pink Key include:

• Tools to track medical appointments and procedures, including setting reminders.
• Content written and maintained by Dr. Khatcheressian about all facets of breast cancer, including diagnosis, treatment and survivorship issues.
• Links to special content areas on the VitalKey web site, at http://www.vitalkey.com, that provide additional information that has been provided by or approved by cancer specialists.
• Access to VitalKey medical liaison staffers, who currently are registered nurses with supplementary training in breast cancer issues. These staff members help Pink Key subscribers by working with them to gather and enter medical records on their Pink Keys, and call subscribers for periodic updates to their Keys.

All VitalKeys, including the Pink Key, can be lifesavers if their holders are ever involved in an emergency care situation and unable to speak or otherwise communicate with medical professionals who are not familiar with their medical records, medications, allergies and other special medical needs. VitalKeys contain all such records and may be accessed from virtually any computer; Internet access is not required to open a VitalKey.

For further information about the Pink Key or VitalKey, go to http://www.vitalkey.com or call 877 VITALKEY (877-848-2553).

New device provides "key" to breast cancer survivorship

Richmond Times Dispatch - October 10, 2007

A new USB device could play a key role in helping women maneuver life after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Vital Data LLC has partnered with the VCU Massey Cancer Center to develop the Pink Key, a consumer empowerment type of technology that encourages breast cancer survivors to stay engaged in their own medical care.

The device is similar to Vital Data's VitalKey USB drive, which allows subscribers to keep an electronic version of their medical records nearby in case of emergencies.

The Pink Key goes a step further, said Tom Blue, Vital Data's chief operating officer. In addition to medical records, it's a library of content and there's also some functionality that allows for the management of appointments.

It gives women all the information their doctors have. It keeps patients involved in their own care, explained Dr. James Khatcheressian, assistant professor with the VCU Department of Internal Medicine, who authored much of the content that appears on the Pink Key.

Over the years, Khatcheressian developed paper-based tools to help survivors follow bestpractice guidelines as they managed life after breast cancer. His system worked well, but as technology advanced, he surmised that an electronic version would work even better.

He had been doing research and publishing how breast cancer patients should have their medical information on some sort of portable media, said Blue. When we learned of his theory that these patients should all have their records on a USB drive, we thought this was a happy coincidence.

Vital Data had already developed a USB device that could store medical records for the general population. With Khatcheressian's help, the company set about customizing a similar device for breast cancer patients.

The result is the Pink Key, which combines personal health records, screening guidelines and research. As research evolves, the information delivered through the Pink Key will continue to be updated, giving survivors and their doctors access to the latest findings.

Breast cancer is a condition that can recur years after an initial diagnosis, so a person is never entirely out of the woods. Because of that, people will end up back in the care of a primary care doctor, not a breast cancer specialist, said Blue. This is a tool that, in addition to the practical functionality, enables a person to stay up-to-date on the latest surveillance guidelines for this condition.

It will even prompt women when it's time to schedule their next mammogram and give detailed instructions on how and when to do monthly breast self-exams.

The first women are already giving this new device a test run.

We will continue through October to really build a consumer advisory panel of Pink Key users and extricate what they think about it or what could be better about it, said Blue.

The Pink Key is currently available through physician's offices.

Subscriptions start at $13.95 per month.

For more information on the Pink Key, visit www.vitalkey.com or call (877) VITAL-KEY.