YAKIMA, Wash.- SunComm 911 Communications is advocating for alternate medical ID’s for Yakima County residents after switching away from the Smart 911 system.
SunComm’s 911 Director Erica McNamara estimates the percentage of residents to sign up with Smart 911 to be under 0.1%
“We had about 400-450 people county wide that was out of about 255,000 people enroll in our program,” says McNamara.
Instead, the agency is encouraging residents to share relevant medical information through online Medical ID’s through programs like Apple’s Health app.
The app allows users to enter preexisting medical information, such as conditions, allergies and blood types. The notes section provides a section to add additional information that can help first responders with an easier path to get to you.
“I know personally, I’ve worked incidents where family has been willing to give us gate code information and we don’t have to try to find alternate routes to get in,” said McNamara. “In general, it just saves time.”
With systems like the Health app and the online Emergency Health Profile flags addresses with relevant information and alerts dispatch who will pass it to responding agencies.
“If a call for service is entered at an address and that address is flagged that someone with autism lives there or someone that has some sort of cognitive impairment lives there, our first responders and call takers are notified of that,” says McNamara.
