History
About
MedicAlert® is a non-profit membership organisation founded in 1956. MedicAlert® services are built around a repository of healthcare information that enables members to manage their personal health records, while maintaining security, privacy and confidentiality. MedicAlert® is the trusted third party custodian of comprehensive personal healthcare information and provides a range of services to members.
Story
The MedicAlert® Foundation story begins back in the summer of 1953, in Turlock, California. Where – while her parents were away on holiday – Linda Collins, 14-year-old daughter of physician and surgeon Dr. Marion Collins, cut her finger badly enough to require stitches and an anti-tetanus injection at the local hospital.
When Linda arrived at the hospital she was quickly given a test dose of tetanus antitoxin; however what the doctors didn’t know was that Linda was so highly allergic to this form of medication that within moments she had gone into anaphylactic shock (a severe and possibly fatal form of allergic reaction).
Following this incident, Linda’s father realized that if only one tiny drop of the antitoxin had produced this reaction, a full dose would most likely have killed her. Thereafter, whenever Linda went away from home for a weekend or to a neighboring town for school events, Dr Collins would either attach a note to her coat or make a paper bracelet describing his daughters’ allergies.
Later, Linda came up with the concept of a silver bracelet with “Allergic to Tetanus Antitoxin” engraved on the back, Dr. Collins then added “MedicAlert” and the symbol of the medical profession – the Staff of Asclepius – to the front. This design was sent to a local San Francisco jeweler who created the first ever MedicAlert bracelet.
Dr Collins spent the next three years consulting other medical professionals and in 1956 founded MedicAlert in the United States of America, with the headquarters in Turlock, California. By 1961 the MedicAlert Foundation International was established with Canada becoming the first country other than the U.S.A to adopt the bracelet as a form of medical identification.
By 1964 MedicAlert® Foundation International – a nonprofit, tax-exempt, and charitable organization – had expanded into the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa; and by 1984 MedicAlert could be found in 9 countries outside of the U.S.A.
Today, MedicAlert® Foundation International provides its services to roughly 2.3 million members in the United States of America and another 1.7 million members through its affiliates worldwide.
MedicAlert SA
MedicAlert® was originally adopted in South Africa as a project of Lions International in 1964, and ran until 2002 before becoming a true non-profit, section-21 Company. The MedicAlert® South Africa headquarters are located in Cape Town and have partnerships with ER24 and the Medi-Clinic Group.
MedicAlert® will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2014 and will celebrate its 10th anniversary as independent non-profit in 2012.
During the past 45 years, MedicAlert® has provided services to more than 500,000 members and expired members. Today the organisation has 35,000 annual members.
The organisation is value driven and is very proud of its record for maintaining security, privacy and confidentiality, and people trust the organisation with comprehensive personal health information.
For more information please visit www.medicalert.co.za
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