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Options range from simple bracelets to pricier key-chain flash drives,
implanted microchips - and call-centers that relay stored health records
By LAURAN NEERGAARD (AP) – 2 hours ago WASHINGTON — Emergency health alerts for the Facebook generation? The
nation's ambulance crews are pushing a virtual medical ID system to
rapidly learn a patient's health history during a crisis — and which can
immediately text-message loved ones that the person is headed for a
hospital.
The Web-based registry, invisibleBracelet.org, started in Oklahoma and
got a boost this fall when the state's government made the program an
optional health benefit for its own employees. Now the iBracelet attempts to go nationwide as the American Ambulance
Association next month begins training its medics, who in turn will urge
people in their communities to sign up. For $5 a year, basic health information and up to 10 emergency contacts
are stored under a computer-assigned PIN number that's kept on a wallet
card with your driver's license, a key fob or a sticker on an insurance
card. It's a complement to the medical alert jewelry that people with
diabetes, asthma and a host of other conditions have used for decades to
signal their needs in an emergency. And it comes as the American College of Emergency Physicians is trying
to determine just what information is the most critical for medics and
ER doctors to find when you're too ill or injured to answer questions,
so that competing emergency-alert technologies don't miss any of the
essentials. "Too many times, we don't have the information to help us treat the
patients correctly," says James Finger, president of the American
Ambulance Association, the largest network of emergency medical service
providers. Not everyone who should wear a medical alert bracelet does, costing EMS
workers precious minutes determining, for example, if someone's
incoherent because he's having a stroke or because he's a diabetic with
dangerously low blood sugar. Even someone too healthy for those bracelets may have some condition
that could help emergency workers make a faster diagnosis, avoid a
medication reaction — or track down their next-of-kin faster. The question is how to make sensitive medical data easily accessible to
emergency workers without violating federal health-privacy laws. Options
range from simple bracelets to pricier key-chain flash drives, implanted
microchips — and call-centers that relay stored health records and
notify relatives when an alarm or medic's phone call activates the system. Rapid family notification is crucial, says Stephen Williamson, president
of Oklahoma's Emergency Medical Services Authority — and one reason his
EMS provider recently trained to use the new Invisible Bracelet. A medical alarm necklace Williamson bought for his mother promptly
called an ambulance when she fell, but didn't alert him as promised
until 11 hours after he learned of her hospitalization on his own. And when his wife suffered a brain aneurysm a year ago, Williamson
called 911 and got her in the ambulance — only to freeze, unable to
remember how to contact their daughters. "I'm in the business of emergencies. ... But I just stared at my phone.
I couldn't figure out for, honest to God, five minutes it seemed like,
'What do I do?'" Williamson recalls. "I'd much rather have known that's
being handled and left for the hospital." Enter the iBracelet. Only authorized medics can access a Web site that
reads the PIN and opens the health info they use to treat. Then, with a
push of a button, the medic chooses an area hospital for transport.
Simultaneously, the up to 10 people listed to be notified by text or
e-mail get that message. EMS providers couldn't show data yet on how well it works. But nearly
100,000 people have enrolled since the service opened in Oklahoma in
April, says Noah Roberts of the Tulsa-based Docvia health software
company, and the University of Oklahoma is preparing to use it for a
campus registry. The ultimate goal is an electronic medical record for everyone,
available no matter where they are, says Dr. Andrew I. Bern, an ACEP
board member and emergency physician in south Florida. That's years away. Until then, ACEP is preparing recommendations for the
most important information to overcome what Bern calls "the limited real
estate" on emergency bracelets and wallet cards, and the problem of
outdated information when people forget to update their records. No one's immune: 120 million people needed emergency care last year,
Bern notes. So in choosing whichever of today's emergency-information
systems most fits your lifestyle, he stresses to keep it up to date. "You have to be a partner in this whole process, gathering the
information," he says. "If it's not current, it's not that useful." EDITOR's NOTE _ Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for
The Associated Press in Washington.
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