Wearing a MedicAlert® Information Tag May Be a Lifesaver
Hometown Gazette August 11, 2003
While it might seem scary to know that information on your medical conditions is accessible to anyone other than your family and close friends, at other times it can be extremely comforting.
This is especially true when those with that access work at the MedicAlert ® service, which offers, as they describe, it, "instant worldwide access to identification and vital medical info rmation from one secure location."
Individuals subscribing to MedicAlert wear engraved tags noting their pre-existing medical conditions, so in emergency situations where they cannot communicate with medical personnel, the medics can quickly learn the patient's medical background. The personnel also have access to a phone number to get more detailed info rmation from the registered nurses who answer the emergency phone line. And when someone calls that number, the staff at MedicAlert also attempts to reach the patient's family to apprise them of the situation.
"MedicAlert helps in patient care for those patients who are unable to speak for themselves," said Chris Varda, EMS/PATH manager at Borgess Hospital . By looking at the MedicAlert tag on a patient's wrist or neck or the MedicAlert wallet card, the medical first responders can tell if the patient is allergic to the treatment they normally use in similar situations.
"We usually give (trauma patients) antibiotics, but if they have a MedicAlert tag that says they have a penicillin allergy, then we go ahead and give them a different one," Varda said. "If we have no idea if they have any allergies, we just go ahead and give the antibiotic and if they have a reaction then we treat it accordingly." So a potential problem is eliminated at the outset.
"It helps the community whether they come in by EMS or if they come in through the hospital," Varda said. "MedicAlert tags signify that they have some kind of medical condition, whether it be a latex allergy or a seizure history or a cardiac history. It's extremely important for those patients that cannot talk or cannot communicate." In fact, a MedicAlert tag is the first thing emergency medical personnel look for when they respond to a call. Therefore, people who know they have conditions that might cause them to be uncommunicative in case of an emergency should be the first to consider signing up for MedicAlert. People who are epileptic, for example.
"It's very important that (epileptics) wear it," Varda said, "because if they're unresponsive, it's probably due to an epileptic seizure. It's crucial for those individuals that have severe medical problems to put that on the MedicAlert tag." Varda estimates that only a quarter of the patients Borgess works with use the MedicAlert service. But why aren't people likely to use the tags?
"A lot of it has to do with denial, a lot of it has to do with 'I don't want to advertise that I have a medical condition,' she said. Despite the concern of advertising a medical condition, MedicAlert figures state that over 4 million subscribe to the service and Varda notes that MedicAlert has come out with some more viewer-friendly tags.