This is a question we are often asked and whilst we aren’t about to give away all our trade secrets, we believe that you have the right to at least understand some of the considerations we looked for and expected from the outset.
Not all medical alert bracelets are the same. Many of the medical alert bracelets/tags available, take very little advantage of the year 2022 and the amazing advances in technology that can be utilised to assist those in an urgent medical situation. At BERTs Alert we consider ours to be different.
We first looked for secure servers to store the information. Frankly, this wasn’t too hard a task as we were aware of the capacity and reputation of the Amazon servers. All the information we load onto the Amazon network is encrypted. What does this mean? quite simply text that we can read is converted into incomprehensible mumbo jumbo by the computer. Codes are needed to read back and forth from data that has been converted and then converted back so that we can read it.
So, we know where we were going to store the information, we then had to source a platform that could capture it in an easily understandable format. There are many software programs available that will do this including Google, but we use a platform that we have been using for over 4 years in other parts of our business that has proven itself time and again.
The last challenge was the gateway between the smartphone and the server. We use a tab that is quite simply a chip embedded in an appropriate holder, in this case, a wrist strap, tab or key ring.
This can only be read using a smartphone within 6 mm.
So now we had security, easy access, and the software to capture the information. One last step was to satisfy regulatory bodies that the information was secure. We are HIPPA compliant and have signed legal agreements to ensure this. So what is HIPPA compliant, here is an extract from the web that explains it very well:
“The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) sets the standard for sensitive patient data protection. Companies that deal with protected health information (PHI) must have a physical, network, and process security measures in place and follow them to ensure HIPAA Compliance.”
Quite simply, we comply!