The simplest ideas are often the best, and this is a perfect demonstration.
A Cambridge-based paramedic has launched a national campaign with Vodafone to encourage people to store emergency contact details in their mobile phones.Bob Brotchie, a clinical team leader for the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust, hatched the plan last year after struggling to get contact details from shocked or injured patients.
By entering the acronym ICE – for In Case of Emergency – into the mobile’s phone book, users can log the name and number of someone who should be contacted in an emergency.
Brilliantly simple – it relys on a device that most of us carry all the time, without the need for any additional software, systems, databases etc.
Why make things complicated and ask people to do something which they won’t do, and that emergency people won’t know about?
All the ER folks need to do is grab the cell phone and start dialing the calls in either the ‘received calls’ or ‘dialed calls’ buffers. “Hey, this is the ER, we’ve got a guy in here, can you help us find an emergency contact for him?”