Medical Alert Systems are still in a stage of development. One of the largest factors preventing the technology from being robust and useful at many levels is the lack of information available at many levels of a medical emergency. At this junction, there are numerous gaps in information sharing, including medical records, medical imagery, as well as patient or victim information and history.
The obvious hurdle in developing medical alert systems can be numerous but often includes a form of privacy of information, and who is entitled access to that information. This is a very sensitive issue, because if your personal information can be easily attainable by marketing companies, then you effectively lose your personal rights to medical confidentiality.
Although this post isn’t intended to assume an answer to this complex question of getting the right information to the right person at the right time, it does appear that there may need to be a rethinking of how a patients or victims medical information is accessed.
For example, if a medical emergency occurs where an electronic medical bracelet is triggered, it would pointless in having the customer service representative handling the call to have access to the patients medical information. Granted, basic information like, patient illness such as diabetes would be useful, medical records including blood tests etc. in the hands of the CSR would not be practical. But at some point in the medical emergency, trained medical professionals would benefit greatly from access to that information.
Often, the information is incomplete because an accurate history of the patients medical information is not available locally, or is incomplete. The future of medical alert systems may include a fully robust initiative that encompasses every level of the emergency, connecting CSR with Medical Professionals, with varying degrees of access to information that is needed to help the patient. This is a tall order, but as baby boomers become more dependant on the medical system, it is vital for an increase to the level of sophistication of the medical alert system.
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