A few weeks back I asked for comments on Emergency Call Devices. I
received several responses including ones from Bill Werre and Debbie White.
I have also done some local homework. Here is a summary of what I have
learned for those who are interested.
ONE THING TO CHECK independent of how you decide to provide Emergency
Alerting:
Call 911 and make sure they have accurate information on your address. I
found that my phone number in 911's data base showed my number as
disconnected and therefore provided no street address. 911 personnel can
still get your address by calling the phone company around the clock but it
represents a needless delay. I suggest you check your local 911 service to
be sure the data they have on you is accurate.
In all of these approaches to emergency alerting, the client wears a
"medical pendant" with a button activated by the presumably conscious
client. If the client is unconscious as a result of falling, you have a
big problem! There are no solutions I know of for this situation short of
the physical presence of a care giver to call 911.
There are two basic approaches: Hardware or Service. In both, it is
desirable for the care giver to have a cell phone to be worn at all times
when the caregiver is away from the patient.
EMERGENCY ALERTING In the hardware approach you buy a black box and a
"medical pendant" from Radio Shack or on-line from smarthome.com. The
medical pendant relays a signal to the base station by radio frequency with
a 100 foot range, which then calls the monitoring service. Then, you
program the several phone numbers, with 911 last, you want called in an
emergency. The battery operated pendant is worn by the client and has one,
or two, buttons to be actuated by the client. The black box is AC powered
possibly with a battery backup. Cost is around $100 give or take. If this
approach doesn't result in calling the appropriate party, all you have to
do is look in the mirror to find the responsible party. Also, you have no
rapport with the folks who are doing the dispatching.
EMERGENCY ALERTING With the Service approach, you have two possibilities:
National or Local. In the former, there is a service in Nashua, NH called
Colonial Medical Alert on 800-323-6794, ask for Donna. [There may be other
national services like Colonial.] They charge $25 per month and I believe
there is no install charge. They seemed quite knowledgeable and competent.
However, I was not comfortable with dealing long distance with someone
with the responsibility for ultimately calling my local 911 from a distant
location. Colonial did have one nice feature: They will sell you a lock
box with a combination lock on it for your house key to avoid the emergency
folks from having to break your door down to gain entry.
There is a another national approach using security alarm companies, e.g.
ADT. They are not health oriented and only offer a series of phone calls
which they will make but without ANY direct voice communications to the
fallen client. They can call the client by phone and this would help if
the client is able to answer the phone. If the client can answer the
phone, they could call 911 themselves! I already have the ADT service;
however, they don't seem to have the same health orientation that the local
service has.
In the local approach, both of our local hospitals offer a emergency
alerting service. The larger one contracts it out to the folks in NH. The
smaller hospital buys the black boxes and pendants and installs and
maintains them for you for a monthly fee of $35. The calls are received by
the personnel at the hospital switchboard where a minimum of three people
are always on duty. These folks receive your alerting signal and bring up
your data base on a PC screen. Using this information, they contact the
client by two way voice communications via the previously installed black
box. If the client is able to communicate, the person receiving the
alerting signal makes a decision on what to do next based on their
judgement and your previously provided instructions. They also have
information on your health, medications, etc. In our area, they monitor
over 500 clients. I found their personnel to be extremely sensitive to the
unique needs of clients requiring alerting services. They do not require
a long term commitment, but do require a release of any responsibility.
I also spoke to the Director of Operations for the local emergency rescue
service. The main thing I learned from him was an implicit preference for
the locally run service. Clearly, he could not make any recommendations.
One warning: With MSA patients, you frequently have depressed speech
volume. In our case we found this limited the range to about ten feet as
her voice is very soft. they could pick up my voice for 60 feet. If they
can't hear you speak or make some loud noise, a call goes to 911. Our
monitoring service has been forewarned about the soft voice.
My Bottom Line: Terry and myself decided on the locally operated service
even with the limited voice pickup range as there seems to be no other
alternative and there is no time committment for the service, just the
montly fee.
Perry Sennewald 804-244-0018