Area Health Care Company Offers Medical Info Kit For Your Fridge

MEDIA, Pa. (CBS) -- The Main Line Health System is offering area residents a way to prepare if a future medical emergency should come their way.

But even if you don't take advantage of their offer, it may spark an idea of how you can make similar provisions to protect yourself and your family.

Dr. Michael Goodyear, director of emergency medicine at Riddle Hospital, says that they are promoting a use of a simple cylindrical device, about the size of a potato chip can, called an "Ice Pack":

"It's small enough to fit on a shelf on the door of the refrigerator, or anywhere in the refrigerator.  And the kit comes with a sticker that is placed on the front of the refrigerator so the paramedics can see that this particular family participates in this."

Inside the bright blue can you put crucial personal and medical information, such as the list of medications each family members is taking, allergies, physician contact information, Social Security numbers, recent surgeries, and insurance information.

Why store this information in the fridge?
"There's always a refrigerator in everyone's kitchen.  If you put it in a cabinet, most kitchens have five, six , seven cabinets -- so which one do the paramedics look in?"

The company is spreading the word with area paramedics to be on the lookout for the "Ice Pack" when they are called to a home for an emergency.

You can request a kit for your house by going to http://www.mainlinehealth.org/er.

Reported by Michelle Durham, KYW Newsradio 1060.

Photo provided