GPS, the Global Positioning System, has transformed the world with the ability to locate objects within a useful radius. When it comes to medical alert systems, GPS is literally a life-saver. What’s the current state of play when it comes to locating someone from a phone call or automatic alert device?
In North America, the emergency 911 phone system has evolved over the decades, and continues to evolve, with its most important goal being that of locating a caller automatically and accurately during an emergency phone call. The 911 telephone system has adopted newer refinements such as Enhanced 911 (E-911) and technologies such as Next Generation 911 (NG911) to widen the spread of coverage across the country and to narrow the pinpointing radius.
Locating an emergency caller is getting pretty accurate, although there are gaps in the coverage supplied in a country like America, with countless different jurisdictions handling call-center routing. And as we know, cell coverage has its gaps too, such as in rural areas and mountains, and even in downtown skyscraper country.
The big helper has of course been GPS, especially as so many people use cell phones now, and modern ones all come equipped with this technology of geolocation. The landline phone system by the way is already located precisely based on the address associated with the phone number. Cell phone networks can locate phones approximately using triangulation of the nearest cell towers associated with a transmission, but GPS is the most accurate way to locate a phone or alert device.
Military GPS is more pinpoint than commercial GFPS, but even for us civilians, GPS is generally accurate to within a few yards or meters. This is usually enough to pinpoint a person in trouble but it may confuse a multi-story apartment block with the building next door, and of course it doesn’t know what floor the device is on.
Specialized Response
This is where a dedicated medical alert system enhances the GPS, with specialized operators who know they’re answering an alert call, not from the entire population, but from someone exclusively on their list, with signature information such as medical records instantly to hand. If the device has called automatically – say, with the user unconscious or disabled from a sudden fall – the operator can dispatch help immediately to the precise GPS location, and also provide additional information to first responders to help identify and specifically locate the person.
Even with GPS active in most emergency response systems across America, the operator always confirms by voice where the caller is located. In emergencies, the caller often doesn’t know this clearly, or cannot think clearly of such details, or may even be afraid to specify location (in such cases as a robbery in progress, for example).
In the relatively more orderly world of medical alert calls (funny to think of them this way, but by comparison with the wild, wild world of general emergency response, they are), an operator will also try to verify location by voice, which just makes sense. But with no response given by the caller – the exact situation a medical alert device is primed for – GPS and the call center’s records take over.
At Bay Alarm Medical, by the way, we were pleased to be identified by the Senior List as having the most reliable GPS system in the medical alert industry – we put a lot of work into being accurate, and of course our response time remains a leading factor also.
The Future
What’s the future of locating people and objects? More satellites are going into orbit, as Starlink showed just how much coverage could be brought to previously underserved areas. And the latest cell phone from China will now connect directly to satellite instead of going through the land-based cell network. Also, a system has now been devised of mapping every inch of the planet to within 9-foot squares everywhere – the three word system, with apps available for spatially mapping where you are, or at least, where your phone is.
The future of technology monitoring human location can only bring greater accuracy and relevance to the task of locating a person in distress. And there’s little doubt that dedicated medical alert systems will be traveling along that evolving edge also.
