Silicon.com's Jo Best reports today that VeriChip has implanted its VeriMed RFID chips in 18 diabetics at the Atlanta Diabetes Expo.

"The diabetics will now be added to the database for VeriChip's patient identification system," Best writes. "Should chipped patients turn up at hospital unconscious or unable to communicate, the RFID tags they carry inside their bodies can be scanned using an RFID reader and their details called up from a database. According to VeriChip, 500 US hospitals have now signed up for the system - a figure the company hopes to increase to 800 by the end of the year."

More here from InformationWeek ... and VeriChip's press release is here.