Sherman unveils life-saving phone app

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Walter Ottenhoff, interactive manager of Elgin-based DC Interactive Group, holds an iPhone with an application called "ICE" (In Case of Emergency) released by Sherman Health. | Michael Smart~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: September 29, 2011 12:35AM

ELGIN — Sherman Health is hoping that “icing” your smartphone will be the next craze.

“ICE,” or “In Case of Emergency,” is a new application released for the iPhone by Sherman last week.

The ICE app stores that phone user’s emergency contact information, allergies and medical conditions, as well as any medications he or she may be taking. And it puts that information at the fingertips of emergency responders with just the push of a button.

“It’s really relevant to anyone,” said Josh McColough, marketing manager of Sherman Health. “We thought it had really great appeal because, minus the map to Sherman Health, everyone should have this on their phones — really and truly — to help save lives.”

Sherman, like many hospitals, has pushed employees and patients over the past few years to “ICE” their phones, saving emergency contact information into their cell phones under the name “ICE,” McColough said.

Emergency responders are trained to search people’s cell phones for that information in an accident or another emergency, Matthew Stilson, medical director of the Sherman Emergency Department and Immediate Care Centers, said in a written statement last week.

“Having your emergency contact information stored in the app makes their jobs much easier and saves valuable time,” Stilson said.

And Lt. Pat Gengler of the Kane County sheriff’s office said that “having something with your emergency contact information is always good.”

That’s information many people already carry in purses or wallets, Gengler said. A smartphone is just “a new mechanism” for doing that, and it’s a mechanism police are searching “more and more” when they arrive on a scene and need information, he added.

Added warning

But he also warned it appears to be a mechanism criminals are using more and more to steal people’s information, although it can hard to tell if information is stolen from a phone or computer or website with all the new places people store that information.

The more information people store on their phones or on the Internet, the easier they are making it for others to get at that information, such as passwords or bank account, credit card or Social Security numbers, according to Gengler. The key is to think what could happen if someone else got hold of that information, he said.

“If you’re putting emergency contacts in there, my blood type is this, my doctor is this, it’s not as bad as putting your bank account information in there,” Gengler said.

Sherman’s ICE app bring information needed in an emergency to the top of a user’s contact list. Users also can choose to put an ICE banner across the home screen of their smartphones. That makes it even easier to access by simply pushing that button, and it works even if the phone is locked with a password.

Users also can choose to display a photo of their primary and secondary emergency contacts next to the information and select allergies, medications they’re taking, and conditions. And the app uses GPS to display a map to Sherman Hospital from the phone’s location.

McColough said the idea for a Sherman app — originally, “a fun game people could play, not while they were waiting” — grew out of its monthly meeting with Elgin-based DC Interactive Group. DC Interactive came back with the idea for the ICE app, he said.

“A lot of medical apps people come up with don’t make a lot of sense,” said Walter Ottenhoff, interactive manager and Web art director of DC Interactive.

Many hospitals offer apps that give patients wait times at their offices, but that’s information that already can be accessed on their mobile sites, Ottenhoff said. Sherman’s app meets a need on iPhone and Android phones, which don’t put “ICE” at the top of a user’s contact list, like many older phones, he added.

The iPhone app took more than two months to develop and was a “collaborative effort,” reviewed by Sherman’s emergency responders before its release, McColough said. The EMS staffers were the ones who suggested it include allergies, he said.

The free ICE app is available for download at the iTunes App Store. A version of the app for Droid phones is scheduled for release next month, according to Sherman Health.