Unlocked yet untapped: The ubiquitous smartphone and utilization of emergency medical identification technology in the care of the injured patient()

BACKGROUND: Smartphones allow users to store health and identification information that is accessible without a passcode—conceivably invaluable information for care of unresponsive trauma patients. We sought to characterize the use of smartphone emergency medical identification applications and hypothesized that these are infrequently used but positively perceived. METHODS: We surveyed a convenience sample of adult trauma patients/family members (nonproviders) and providers from an urban Level I trauma center during July 2018 on their demographics and smartphone emergency medical identification application usage. Descriptive and chi-square/Fisher exact analyses were performed to characterize the use of smartphone emergency medical identification applications and compare groups. RESULTS: 338 subjects participated; most were female (52%) with median age of 36 (29–48). 182 (54%) were providers and 306 (91%) owned smartphones. 157 (51%) owners were aware smartphone emergency medical identification existed, but only 94 (31%) used it. 123 providers encountered unresponsive patients with smartphones, but only 26 (21%) queried smartphone emergency medical identification, with 19 (73%) finding smartphone emergency medical identification helpful. All 8 (100%) nonproviders who reported to have had their smartphone emergency medical identification queried believed it was beneficial. There were no differences between groups in smartphone emergency medical identification awareness and utilization. CONCLUSION: Smartphone emergency medical identification technology is underused despite its potential benefits. Future work should focus on improving education to use this technology in trauma care.