ICE - In Case of Emergency

[Crunch]

I may not use ICE but its not uncommon for me to call a pts family from their cell phone.

Ive never done it on a trauma cause like everyones said if they were in an accident that was bad enough for them not to be able to talk I'm going to be busy with other things.

But it's been a big help in pts with an altered mental status and no body knows who they are.

Just the other day I had a pt that was found out of it on the train. I got there and looked up mom in his phone and found out he was an epileptic. Huge help for me, in five minutes he had come back around and was fully alert, and of course like most epileptics refused transport. Had I not been able to get a hold of his family we would have awoken while were moving down the road.

 

[Veneficus]

Push ICE, someone answers, you say "Hi, I'm a paramedic on Hwy I-5, someone with a cell phone had your number as an "In case of emergency" number, and we are supposed to be taking care of him. Gotta go, we are going to the hospital now" or give a blow by blow of a resuscitation?? Leave notifications to LE or ER. Besides the phone may be evidence, or get lost.

Since getting on chronic serious prescription drugs, I sent away for two dogtag style "luggage tags", a chain and a little chain to hold the tags together. One has my name & phone, MD, and medical conditions, the other has name, phone, meds and what NOT to give me. MEDIC ALERT: $63. These dogtags: $6 plus shipping, maybe $8 total. And my granddaughter loves to play with them.

Did you get red ones?

 

[AmandaBL]

While waiting to speak to an advisor about enrolling in a paramedic program, an elderly student collapsed and wasn't responsive. The phone # the school had on file rang a cell phone in her hand bag and a fellow student used the ICE # in that phone to contact her husband. That all happened before the ambulance arrived, so I don't know what the student told the poor guy. I did update mine as this was all happening though.:blush:

 

[lightsandsirens5]

IMHO, EMS is there to package and transport to the ER.

The hospital is there for notifications to next of kin.

ICE was a cultural thing, now some phones even have a pre-programed ICE slot...

Think about it, how often is the patient unable to call someone within a few hours anyway ?

Agree with most of what you said. I take exception to your last point however. I personally would want to know as soon as humanly possible if one of my family members or my girlfriend was in some kind of emergency. I don't want to find out after 8 hours and they are finally able to call me themselves. Yes, the majority of time patients will be perfectly able to call in a short period of time. But still, I want to know yesterday if something really bad is going on.

And with my iPhone password protected, I just do the old screen capture of emergency numbers on the main screen thing.