By EMS1 Staff
EMS practitioners know all about medical ID bracelets.
It’s a part of basic EMT training: look for any medical ID jewelry that may alert you to a patient’s underlying condition. Doing so could help you save a life.
What many responders may not know is that, with MedicAlert bracelets, there’s a medical expert connected to the jewelry.
Not literally, of course, but on the back of every MedicAlert bracelet is a phone number that, when called, connects responders to medical personnel – many of whom are EMTs — who are trained in medical information and can provide more a detailed background of the patient’s condition than will fit on the tiny bracelet.
“We want responders to know that, by calling this number, they can access information that can potentially help them save a life,” Greg Adams, Director of Educational Services at MedicAlert Foundation said.
By calling this number and getting detailed information about specific conditions, medics will gain an edge in unusual cases.
“Without MedicAlert, medics are missing the information that will help them save a life,” Adams said. “Those patients with more severe injuries or conditions; with malignant hyperthermia, for instance, some medications can be deadly.”
What differentiates MedicAlert from some medical ID systems is that, when a medic calls the number on the back of the bracelet they talk with a live person who will walk them through the patient’s case specifics.
This is important because, as many in EMS know, some conditions are so complex that there’s no way all the relevant information will fit on the back of a bracelet.
Patients with chronic diseases usually have more than one co-morbidity, Adams said. When a patient enrolls in the system, MedicAlert uses as much engraving space as they can to get the most critical information on the bracelet.
“However there are thousands of patients that have so much stuff that it can’t all get on bracelet — think of kids with food allergies,” Adams said.
“Our primary motivation is to get medics to look at the bracelet, and if there’s something unusual that jumps out, we want them to make that call.”