As more and more health care data goes digital, problems in record duplication and incorrectly transcribed records ("overlays") remain patient safety issues. The latter is especially concerning because of the chance of a patient with an incorrect or incomplete record being administered incorrect medication, or potentially causing a misdiagnosis. In addition, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, health industry data breaches accounted for 43 percent of all such breaches.

Hospitals in the US are currently undergoing trials of using biometric markers to match patients with their medical records, potentially reducing such errors and breaches. The idea is to take a set of biometric readings of patients when entering a health care facility – depending on the case, patient's fingerprint, iris, face, and even veins may be recorded. These readings would be matched with the patient's medical record and/or chart in order to ensure that the patient's caregivers have the right information at the right time.

In addition, there have been trials of medical IDs that would incorporate the patient's image and other biomarkers like fingerprint and even high-resolution iris scans to ensure that a patient is who they say they are. Returning patients would be able to be processed more quickly and with better assurance on the part of the hospital.

All of these solutions would require significant investment in products (sensors, cameras, and the circuit boards that support those products), as well as process improvements on the part of health care providers. While the direct, measurable costs involved for record keeping (duplicates and overlays) are likely to be under about US$100 million per year, legal costs associated with incorrect treatment could skyrocket in the litigation-happy USA. In all, the health care vertical appears to be a potentially lucrative and nascent market for biometric security.