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Medical identification or alert jewellery: an opportunity to save lives or an unreliable hindrance?
Author(s) -
Rahman S.,
Walker D.,
Sultan P.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
anaesthesia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.839
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1365-2044
pISSN - 0003-2409
DOI - 10.1111/anae.13958
Subject(s) - clarity , medicine , identification (biology) , scopus , medical emergency , internet privacy , medline , medical information , ambiguity , family medicine , law , computer science , biochemistry , chemistry , botany , political science , biology , programming language
Summary Medical identification jewellery can convey vital information to emergency responders, but mistakes and ambiguity may lead to misdiagnosis and morbidity. We performed a review of relevant articles retrieved from Pubmed ® , Embase ® and Scopus ® and Google UK Inc. to investigate the commercial availability and issuance of these products. From 84 identified studies, we shortlisted 74 for review. The Google search retrieved 1,090,000 results within 0.57 s (January 2017). We explored 32 websites selling medical alert jewellery in the first five pages of these results. We found that patients themselves are currently responsible for the engraved wording on medical alert jewellery, with no mandatory physician checks. The accuracy and appropriateness of this information may thus vary. In the absence of national guidance in the UK , we suggest that there should be a list of specific indications warranting their use, a requirement for regular review of information, and clarity around the level of physician input into the engraving chosen. We discuss the potential benefits vs. risks of wearing medical alert jewellery and clarify the limitations of medical teams’ responsibilities in relation to patients found to be wearing them.