According to JAMA and several other health publications, as many as 200,000 people die each year in the U.S. due to preventable medical errors. The costs associated with these errors are over 20 billion dollars.
One recently retired firefighter/paramedic set out to change these alarming statistics nearly six years ago and has found a solution to both minimize the lives lost and put a large dent in the billions of wasted healthcare dollars. Brett Hill, the founder of EmergiLink, claims his service will save lives, reduce medication errors, expedite the treatment and transport of patients during medical emergencies, and help them arrive in the emergency department with meaningful medical history—vital information that will help patients get treated quickly and appropriately as well as cut back on the ordering of costly diagnostic tests.
EmergiLink is described as an electronic medical record with fingerprint and mobile messaging technologies. Citizens in a given community subscribe to the program by registering their contact information, uploading their photos, entering their medical history information on their home computers and later, have two of their fingerprints scanned and attached to their secure electronic profile. Should a member become a patient, responding paramedics would be able to scan one of their fingers and within seconds, identify them and bring up their comprehensive medical report. Personnel in the emergency department would also be able to use the system for the 100 million people that walk into the nations ER’s annually. The cost associated with the program is $3.95 per month/per home with up to 50 percent returned to the hosting Emergency Medical (EMS) providers.
In addition to the life-saving virtues of the system, Hill says that, “family members can be automatically notified when their loved ones are treated or transported, lost children can be reunited with their parents and family members can be reunited following large scale disasters or acts of terrorism. The mobile messaging solutions can even be used in the school system to alert children and faculty when there is a campus emergency such as a gunman.”
Hill believes in order for the program to be a success, local emergency agencies need to make the connection on their end so the data can quickly get into the hands of those charged with saving lives. Hill says, “it has been a struggle getting heard by these agencies—having people come forward would only help the effort.”
EmergiLink is partnered with Cogent Systems, an International Biometrics company, Sacramento based Inspironix and Silicon Valley based Zingerang. Collectively, their efforts have created a complete emergency-medical-identification-system the world has not yet seen. EmergiLink is currently in talks with several countries and over 30 fire departments across the U.S. Hill would also like to see EmergiLink established in Santa Clarita where he has lived the past 15 years with his wife and three children.
For more information contact Brett Hill, Founder/President/CEO at 661-305-7476 or bretth@emergilink.com .