Medical Alarm Monitoring

The heart of any medical alarm system is the medical alarm monitoring and response center. When a call is made the speed and quality of response is crucial to the client receiving a good experience.

The Role of The Medical Alarm Monitoring Center

In an emergency all you need to do is push the button on the medical alert device you are wearing. About 30 to 40 seconds later the monitoring center will begin a two-way conversation with you through a base console (speaker unit) that is plugged into the telephone line at your home.

When you speak to the operator you may say something like "I've fallen and I can't get up. But I'm not injured so can you just call my son (daughter/neighbor/friend)?" The operator when then do as you ask. However if it is a medical emergency the operator would dispatch appropriate medical services to your home.

If you press the button but are unable to speak this would also be treated as a medical emergency.

After assistance has been dispatched the operator will call your key holders, the people with keys to your home that live close by so they can meet the emergency services and let them in. You may have a lockbox installed if necessary to enable access.

The operator will then call your family to let them know you have had an emergency and they can meet you at the hospital.

Questions About Medical Alarm Monitoring

Are your operators always there to answer the phone?
Operators must be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. In-bound calls should be answered at once by a live person regardless of how busy the center is. There should be a call management system in place that monitors the call flow traffic and calculates staffing needs.

How are your operators trained?
Operators must have comprehensive training programs designed specifically for medical alarms. They must be trained to handle all situations.

Are they trained to deal with emergency medical needs?
They must be trained to handle all medical situations and to provide a good level of care advice to clients with emergency medical needs.

Can they recognise life-threatening emergencies?
The operator must be able to recognize life threatening emergencies, including cardiac arrest, breathing problems, and strokes and to provide specific medical care instructions to clients waiting for an emergency services response.

How is your monitoring center certified?
UL Listed (United Laboratories), FM Certified and Department of Defence Certified? Monitoring centers that acheive all three of these certifications are well placed to handle any situation. They ensure that the monitoring center has a backup system in place so that it won't go down and that it will always be available to handle your emergency call.

Do you own your own monitoring center?
Companies who run a privately owned medical alarm center that has been designed specifically to monitor medical alarm systems claim to provide a superior service. However there is a big variation in the standard of service for both privately owned and contracted out monitoring centers and one is not necessarily better than the other.

Is the monitoring service customised?
A customized monitoring service will include customized information about the client's circumstances and how the response to a call should be handled and include any special instructions.

Can you talk to clients in their own language?
Some monitoring centers use translation services to allow operators to communicate with subscribers in their own language, in addition to English.

Finding out about the standard of service of the medical alarm monitoring center is an important part of choosing a medical alarm.