Five-year-old Mazie suffers from Reflex Anoxics Seizures (RAS), a very rare condition that stops her heart in stressful situations.
When she was rushed to the emergency department, precarious moments were spared because the triage nurse was able to immediately access all of her medical data through her Tap2Tag bracelet.
Narratives like Mazie’s are close to heart for Chris Ford, the founder of Tap2Tag, whose mother had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. The constant worry of being absent in an emergency motivated him to found Tap2Tag, a company specializing in medical alert and identification products based in Bristol, England. Three years after, it has a range of products ready to order and multiple operations around the world.
Tap2Tag specializes in wearable technology that functions as a medical identifier and alerting system. New users will create accounts and upload any information onto the Tap2Tag cloud database that they want to grant access to in case of emergency. The information is customizable, and can contain known medical conditions, required medication, blood group, documents, and a personalized message. In case of emergency, the medical responder can access the data by tapping a NFC enabled phone or going to Tag2.me and entering the unique code on the bracelet. When the situation is verified as being an emergency, the bracelet can send messages to designated emergency contacts via SMS or email.
If a bracelet is lost, the owner can log onto their account and suspend access through that device.
Keith Beckles, Director of Tap2Tag Canada, has a personal motivation for getting on board that stemmed from his son, who is an anaphylactic. “He wears an epi-pen around his waist”, said Beckles, “but if you find him on the street, you have three minutes to apply that to him, or you know, he’s dead.”
“It’s not just a product,” said Beckles. It’s a technology that allows you to carry important information around in a secure way - but in an emergency, it allows people to help you,”
According to Beckles, the medical device is the tip of the iceberg regarding the full potential of wearable technology. The bracelet itself does not contain medical information; it is the access point to the online database that has the ability to store an unlimited amount of data.
On the medical frontier, Tap2Tag is expanding to address more personalized needs of clients based on their conditions. For the Alzheimer’s patient, devices in down the road will include features such as fall alert, geo-fencing, and emergency call button. Similar clusters of specialized functionalities are on the horizon for people with other needs – and that’s just the beginning.
“It’s not just a medical advice”, said Beckles. “That’s the forefront, but there are ancillary functions that ‘healthy’ people can use – contactless payment will be the next thing we’re rolling out, and that will be a game changer.”
Tap2Tag will be featured in the upcoming Startup Fashion Week in Toronto during October 3-7.