DIY Medical Alarm

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olivernz

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#243541 17-Dec-2018 09:52

Hi,

My parents are going to a retirement village and I want to set up a medical alarm button for them. The hardware is already all in place so basically at the press of a button I can fire of an email or API call or whatever is needed. Question is, is there any service available that interfaces that to St Johns (Wellington region) or somewhere? Anybody done this before? (I know there's services for this and I specifically don't want them since everything is already in place)

Cheers Oliver

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#2146456 17-Dec-2018 10:00

Are you _really_ sure you want to home brew this? Quite a lot of ongoing bug fixing is usually required in these scenarios. No issues if it's your lights not turning on when they're supposed to, but I'd shy away from that type of scenario for a medical emergency.

In most of Wellington, you need to talk/interface with Wellington Free Ambulance, not St John. Certainly "Wellington Free Ambulance API" didn't produce anything useful when I looked just now.

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#2146465 17-Dec-2018 10:20

What do you mean by "everything is already in place"? If that's an existing alarm then I'm not sure what issue you're trying to solve.

Connectivity is not via public API, and in Wellington Wellington Free Ambulance are the ambulance provider.

wellygary

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#2146469 17-Dec-2018 10:24

The hardware is already all in place so basically at the press of a button I can fire of an email or API call or whatever is needed

Fire an email to whom?... If you want St Johns ( or Wellington free ambulance) to respond you have to subscribe to their service

It is not the same as calling 111

olivernz

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#2146471 17-Dec-2018 10:27

@mdf: Tech is all the same. 433mhz to some form of comms. Be it SMS or email or API. I wouldn't want to rely on any of these but it's better than nothing. Basically my intent is that it notifies me 1st. So I can call and see what's going on. And if that doesn't happen hand off to ambulance. Nobody offers that service.

@sbiddle: I already have all the hardware in place that makes this work. What is missing is some way to actually call an ambulance. I cannot find any other way to engage emergency services bar through a direct call.

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#2146472 17-Dec-2018 10:28

olivernz: I already have all the hardware in place that makes this work. What is missing is some way to actually call an ambulance. I cannot find any other way to engage emergency services bar through a direct call.

That's because there is no other way.

Proper medical alarms are integrated directly with their Comcens - but you don't have the ability to do that. They do exactly what you want - they try calling the patient and if there is no response or the person says they require help they'll send an ambulance.

I'm sure why you're trying to reinvent the wheel other than trying to save a few $

solutionz

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#2146489 17-Dec-2018 11:06

+1 not a good idea trying to "integrate" with emergency services. They don't need your "API" going AWOL and tying up emergency lines etc.

There are private companies (like security alarm monitoring desks etc) you could contract to make the call for you however you'll be reinventing St John's / Bupa services.

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#2146492 17-Dec-2018 11:17

Down in wellington, if parents are of retirement age, the one that talks to Wellington free ambulance ( I believe supplied by ADT), is a free install and free monitoring.....save yourself some piece of mind.

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nickb800

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#2146494 17-Dec-2018 11:20

The best you're going to get without a full subscription is that you are notified when the button is pressed, and you then call your parents:

- If they answer their phone and need help, then you can call 111 to get an ambulance for them.

- If they don't answer their phone then you can try and call 111 to get an ambulance for them, but given the likelihood of a false alarm, you probably can't rely on 111 dispatching an ambulance for you. I suspect that the cost of the monitored alarm solutions is designed to cover a few false alarms.

networkn

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#2146509 17-Dec-2018 12:02

I wouldn't ever consider doing this. If something goes wrong, and you don't know it's going wrong, the consequences could be terrible. Just not worth the risk in my opinion.

olivernz

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#2146515 17-Dec-2018 12:10

@networkn: I see this as an option vs not having any so if it goes wrong you still have the status quo of before, which is calling for help on phone.

@david cole. thanks! Will check that out

@solutionz: Was waiting for that answer ;-) I see the issue too but thought i'd ask anyway. I am a big fan of things like PagerDuty. Wouldn't it be cool to have something like that? Hmmmm.... maybe there's an idea here....

@sbiddle: not trying to re-invent the wheel. One of the functions should be to call emergency services. I'd like to use it for less serious stuff too. i.e. parents want to call me for help or the staff at the retirement home.

Thanks all for the answers. Pretty much confirmed what I thought. No, wasn't trolling. Geekzone has some clever people as yourselves to bounce these ideas off and i am grateful for that. THANKS!

networkn

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#2146517 17-Dec-2018 12:13

olivernz: @networkn: I see this as an option vs not having any so if it goes wrong you still have the status quo of before, which is calling for help on phone. @david cole. thanks! Will check that out @solutionz: Was waiting for that answer ;-) I see the issue too but thought i'd ask anyway. I am a big fan of things like PagerDuty. Wouldn't it be cool to have something like that? Hmmmm.... maybe there's an idea here.... @sbiddle: not trying to re-invent the wheel. One of the functions should be to call emergency services. I'd like to use it for less serious stuff too. i.e. parents want to call me for help or the staff at the retirement home. Thanks all for the answers. Pretty much confirmed what I thought. No, wasn't trolling. Geekzone has some clever people as yourselves to bounce these ideas off and i am grateful for that. THANKS!

In the event of a medical event, calling may not be an option, and that's the time you want 99% piece of mind (nothing is 100%). If it malfunctioned causing a delay or no response, the consequences could be dire.

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#2146792 18-Dec-2018 00:29

Like many of these replies, the hardware that is supplied probably has been designed to avoid / reject false button presses and so on.

I don't know if you could convince any service to respond to a location if you're remote even if you have video to the location "I see a burglar, smoke, person on the floor". The regular monitoring companies seem to be able to have some dispatch capability with the emergency services from their monitored panels based on rejecting false alarms - with the appropriate panic / user initiated alarms. I only use a service at a dollar or so per day because convincing (probably Police) to respond to an alarm without the backing of a security company is pretty low.

I'd use your system to get a neighbour or someone local to do a check but if you need 24/7/365 response times then you have the option.

coffeebaron

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#2146809 18-Dec-2018 06:56

Most retirement villages I've seen have their own onsite emergency system too.

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#2146823 18-Dec-2018 08:26

This is the ADT one: https://www.adtsecurity.co.nz/nevaalone/

Free install, and I think with Gold Card, free monitoring.

jonathan18

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#2146897 18-Dec-2018 09:25

I may be wrong on this, but I'd be very surprised that free monitoring was provided to someone solely because of having a gold card.

Work and Income do provide a subsidy for alarms through their disability allowance (a handful of companies are accredited under this scheme, including ADT), but this is income tested so certainly not a given. See https://www.workandincome.govt.nz/eligibility/health-and-disability/medical-alarms.html#null

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