| By LAURA F. NESTOR | WEEKEND GAZETTE/Living |
| Gazette Intern | May 13, 1995 |
An ambulance soars past traffic, sirens screaming and lights flashing, the medical technicians race toward the home of a senior citizen. When they arrive, the senior is unconscious and they have little to go on. Does she have any existing conditions? Is she taking any medications? Does she have allergies? This frightening scenario is all too common for senior citizens and the EMTs who treat them. That's why the File of Life, a mini-medical history posted on the outside of one's refrigerator, was developed and is being promoted by local Councils on Aging. The File of Life card enable enables medics to obtain a quick medical history when the patient is unable to offer one. "The card eliminates the risk of the patient in a frightened state, forgetting to mention something important" said Marilyn G. Ishler, Director of the South Hadley Council on Aging. The card, which is kept in a red plastic pocket labled "File of Life", lists the |
patient's name and emergency medical contact, insurance policy and social security numbers, health problems, medications, dosages, allergies, recent surgeries, religion and a health care proxy. The entire pocket is held, with a magnet, to the outside of the refrigerator. The File of Life idea was born in Bridgeport, Conn., a few years ago in a slightly different form as the Vial of Life, which was to be kept inside the refrigerator. Ishler said. But the small vial, with a piece of paper containing medical information inside of it kept getting lost. "The EMTs don't have time to clean the refrigerator to find the vial," said Ishler, who helped organize the program. The File of Life pockets, distributed by a Springfield-based nonprofit agency, cost 67 cents each. That fee, which may or may not be taken care of by the council, includes the plastic pocket, a file, and a sticker for the front door, according to Everett E. Reed, the president of File of Life. |
Pocket and purse size files are also available. Reed, a business person for most of his life, came out of retirement to promote File of Life. "Because File of Life is ideal for seniors., we are trying to get as many cities and towns across the sate, and maybe even the country, involved," Reed said. Reed's efforts are assisted by File of Life board members Marilyn Ishler, Hampshire County Sheriff Robert Garvey, District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel and Sen. Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst). The group has already distributed 20,000 files to more than 40 communities and hopes to spread their idea even further, Ishler said. Local Councils on Aging have begun to distribute the File of Life to seniors in their communities. Hatfield, Amherst and South Hadley are among those already distributing, while other communities like Northampton, are in the planning stages. Information or kits are available form File of Life in Springfield at 800-814-1788. |
| By MARY CAREY Staff Writer SOUTH HADLEY - File-of-Life emergency medical information cards will be made available, free of charge to all town residents beginning in mid-June. South Hadley will be only the second community in the nation to offer the cards free and on a community wide basis. The city of Tampa in Florida was the first community to do so, local businessman Everett Reed, who has been marketing the fields nationwide, told the Board of Health Tuesday. More than a dozen local businesses have agreed to sponsor community wide distribution of the files in South Hadley. Sponsors will help pay the cost of the files and distribution. |
A kick-off event will be held June 15, in conjunction with a day long celebration of the 1940s at the Village Commons, Reed said. Designed to be hung from residents' refrigerators, each file comes with a plastic holder, a magnetic strip to hold it to a refrigerator, and a sticker to be placed on the exterior of the person's home. The sticker alerts emergency medical technicians that a file is inside. Special conditions and medical histories are to be included on the file cards. Such information has proven helpful to hospital workers, Reed said. He noted that last week he received a call praising the card system from an |
emergency department nurse at Mercy Hospital in Springfield. The files have been in use in town since Sough Hadley's Friends of the Elderly purchased 2,500 of them earlier this year to distribute to elders. "It's been very, very well-received, and I think has probably already saved the lives of some elders from South Hadley," said the Council on Aging's Elinor White, who was at the Health Board meeting. Reed asked the board if it would distribute the files from its office and it agreed. The files also will be available at the Senior Center and Village Commons offices, Reed said, with other locations to be announced later. |
| File of Life cards will help determine what's wrong with a person when ambulance crews respond to a crisis. SOUTH HADLEY - In medical emergencies, seconds are minutes and minutes are hours, and for ambulance crews, knowing a person's medical history when they respond to a crisis can save precious time and lives. Next week, South Hadley will become the second community in the nation to offer File of Life cards free of charge to all its residents. The cards detail the past serious illnesses, current medications, allergies, doctor's name and other relevant medical information. With a magnetized plastic holder, the cards are attached to the refrigerator door, where emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, always know they can find them. A smaller card, holding the same information, is carried in the wallet. On June 15 at 10 a.m., town and state officials will gather on the town common in South Hadley to introduce the File of Life program to town residents. Among those who will speak will be Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel, state Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst, State Rep. Nancy Flaking, D-Easthampton, and David Hutchinson, chairman of the South Hadley Board of Selectmen. |
Distribution of the cards will follow. In the future, the cards will be available to South Hadley residents at town offices, the Council on Aging and the Village Commons office on College Street. In January, Tampa, Fla., became the first city to offer the cards to all residents. Until the cards were available, medical officials estimate that 97 percent of emergency calls in the county were made with no knowledge of the victim's medical history. "In terms of emergency care, (the File of Life cards) have meant a dramatic improvement, especially with the elderly. It allows EMTs to immediately react to information, instead of pulling information out of distressed family members or a neighbor who may know nothing, " said Douglas Thompson, a spokesman for Tampa General Hospital. Tom Cortis of American Medical Response ambulance service in Western Massachusetts said the cards can be a critical factor in keeping someone alive. "If you get a call to a house for a woman who is down and unresponsive, there are hundreds |
of reasons why that might have happened. But having the knowledge she is, for example, a diabetic, then the first thing you would do is check her sugar level. It would make the assessment and treatment instant," he said. "If you know she had high blood pressure, you would be quicker to suspect stroke. It could be an overdose of a patient's prescribed medicine, so you'd want to know what that medicine is. There are cases when people appear to be intoxicated where it is actually diabetes or some other disease. "So I think it's a great program," said Cortis. "I'd like to see more people use the cards. Not enough do, and quite often when we get there they can't speak for themselves." The File of Life program is being promoted by File of Life, Inc., a nonprofit corporation in Springfield. Everett Reed, president of the organization, said Springfield is considering beginning a community wide program in July. And more than 150 cities and towns in Massachusetts already offer some form of the program. |