Home System Provides Lifeline to Medical Care : Device Alerts Hospitals to Patients’ Need

Ever since Sally Gold’s cardiac problems began five years ago, she has had to live with the unsettling reality that another heart attack could occur at any time.

“It’s very scary when you’re sick and live alone,” acknowledged the 59-year-old Sherman Oaks widow, who underwent bypass surgery last year.

But, as Gold is quick to point out, she is never entirely alone. Like growing numbers of other San Fernando Valley residents, she subscribes to an electronic home emergency system that links her to prompt, round-the-clock medical help even if she is too sick to dial the telephone.

Should Gold need medical help, she simply presses a pendant she wears around her neck, activating a small unit connected to her telephone that sends a message to the emergency department of Valley Hospital Medical Center in Van Nuys.

Reaction at Hospital

At the hospital, as soon as Gold’s subscriber number flashes on a computer screen, emergency personnel get her information card and call her to determine what help is needed. They may dispatch a “responder” (a neighbor or a friend listed on the card) or medical help. If Gold doesn’t answer the call, medical help is dispatched immediately.

If the system’s built-in timer, set for 12 or 24 hours, isn’t reset (either automatically with normal telephone use or manually by Gold) during that period, the system transmits a message to the base station, alerting personnel to a possible emergency.

The system can also be used to obtain police or fire help, and its battery backup makes use possible even during power failures.

The availability of home emergency systems such as Gold’s has evolved only recently. In 1975, a Boston psychologist and inventor, Andrew Dibner, began selling what was believed to be the first nationally distributed home emergency system. His pioneering idea took off, fueled primarily by the growth of the elderly population, the needs of the disabled population and the desire of both groups to maintain their independence.

100,000 Units

Today, Dibner’s company, Lifeline Systems Inc., has 100,000 units in use, including Gold’s, and dozens of competitors manufacture similar systems. Proponents of the home emergency systems assert that the systems can serve as economical alternatives to live-in help or nursing-home care and that the potential market is immense.

Locally, the use of home emergency systems has mushroomed. During the past five years, several Valley hospitals have begun offering the home emergency systems as low-cost or no-cost community service programs.

The monthly subscription fees for the systems vary from nothing to $25, but $15 is typical. Installation charges range from nothing to $50. At most hospitals, special arrangements are made if the fees would be a hardship.

“In many cases, adult children are paying for their parents,” said Mary Ann Sacherman, director of volunteers for Valley Hospital Medical Center, which set up a program for home emergency systems in 1981 after the Los Angeles Department of Aging provided an initial $150,000 grant.

Intangible Worth

“Demand seems to be growing as people become more aware of the programs,” said Pamela Stones, who administers the home emergency program initiated two years ago at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

The programs are by no means profit makers for the hospitals. (Valley Hospital, for example invests $35,000 a year of its own funds to maintain the program.) Yet hospital workers say subscribers’ feedback proves the programs’ intangible worth.

For Gold, who has had to use the system only once, subscribing brings peace of mind. “I can sleep at night,” she said simply.

For Esther Sherman, a multiple sclerosis patient with no motor function on her right side, having the system means she won’t have to wait helplessly for hours to be rescued if she falls in her home.

“When I fall,” explained the 45-year-old North Hollywood woman, “I cannot get up by myself. I’ve used my system a couple of times, and it’s marvelous. Since I’ve gotten it, I feel more secure.” She has also persuaded her 76-year-old mother and her 84-year-old aunt to subscribe.

Benefit to Family

Subscribers aren’t the only beneficiaries of the home emergency systems, administrators of the program point out. “The systems can also help families,” said Nancy LaSota, director of community education and relations at Valley Park Medical Center in Canoga Park, which is setting up a joint program with West Park Hospital in Canoga Park. “Lots of them may want to go away for the weekend but couldn’t because there was no one to look in on Mom.”

Most hospitals rely on a dedicated corps of volunteers to maintain the home emergency systems. At Valley Hospital, volunteers Dan Sherman and Robert Edwards work as installers and pride themselves on quick service. Sally Gold called about getting a system at 10 a.m. one morning, they remembered, and they installed her system by 2 p.m.

Volunteers also give new subscribers an at-home orientation session, not leaving until they feel comfortable operating the system.

Equipment Checks

Volunteers are also in charge of updating the subscribers’ information cards, performing regular equipment checks and reviewing program operation with subscribers.

“We call once a month to be sure the system is working,” explained Lillian Sherman, who coordinates the Valley Hospital program. “Once a person has a unit, we don’t walk away.”

Occasionally, volunteers encounter resistance to the system, especially if family members have requested it. Some elderly people have a “built-in” fear of anything electronic. Others say they are “not old enough or sick enough” to require the 24-hour monitoring system.

When Sacherman of Valley Hospital suggested that her 90-year-old mother subscribe to the program, she met the latter type of resistance.

“It was a terrible battle,” she remembered. “We argued for three or four weeks. Her argument was: ‘If I take this, what’s going to be next?’ But once she got used to it, it was indispensable.” The resistance encountered by Sacherman may explain the surplus of systems that some hospitals have available from time to time.

Stressing the positive aspects of the system--such as peace of mind for worried family members--helps to overcome the resistance, most hospital officials find. “We stress the fact that it’s not just for the elderly, that it’s handy for anyone who may need help,” said Jeannie Dever, the program coordinator for home emergency systems at Palmdale Hospital Medical Center.