Frequently Asked Questions

01. What does ESP stand for?

02. Why should I become an EmergiLink ESP member?

03. Is my personal information safe on the Internet?

04. What is HIPAA?

05. How safe is my data compared to online purchases using credit cards?

06. What happens if while creating my membership account, my computer freezes or I am kicked offline?

07. How will I know when my membership is about to expire?

08. How do I delete my account?

09. How do I edit my membership or any of my co-members?

10. How will emergency medical personnel search my information?

11. How will my department benefit by hosting EmergiLink ESP in our community?

12. What does it cost my organization to be an EmergiLink ESP provider?

13. What type of training is involved with using the system?

14. How do members of the community attach their fingerprints with their membership accounts?

15. How do we market the program to our community?

16. Where are the ESP member profiles stored?

17. How will paramedics that access ESP profiles know if the data they are seeing is current?

18. What 3rd party vulnerability and/or penetration testing has been completed to provide assurance that the privacy of the data can't be compromised?

19. What is the hospital liability/license agreement?

20. What happens if EMT swipes finger prints, no one in database and get tired of trying- they will no longer use?

21. What fingers do you use, why is thumb different from index fingers?

22. Can there be special links to rare diseases?

23. Will people be honest about questions? i.e.- how many drinks, do they use illegal drugs...

24. System performance...how do we know the product will be available when we need it?

25. How do you protect against phishing or fraud?

01. Question: What does ESP stand for?

01. Answer: ESP stands for, “Emergency Subscription Program.” This is a program designed to link members of the community with their Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers through the creation of secure online membership profiles. EmergiLink provides EMS providers with a means to search members’ data at the scene or at the hospital when the member has a medical emergency.

02. Question: Why should I become an EmergiLink ESP member?

02. Answer: For the past 30 years or so, paramedics have completely relied on the patient or family member to provide all the necessary information they need to make fast treatment and transport decisions. Many times, too much time is spent on the scene gathering this vital information and it translates into significant treatment and transport delays. Additionally, there are significant portions of a patients’ medical history such as; medical conditions, medications and allergies to medications that aren’t discovered at the scene or during transport which can result in furthering the discomfort of the patient, increasing injury and even resulting in death. EmergiLink provides all the necessary information ahead of time so that these delays, injuries and even death can be prevented.

03. Question: Is my personal information safe on the Internet?

03. Answer: Your information is stored on a secure server and accessed via a secure connection to the Internet. The website you created your profile on is not searchable on various Internet Search Engines such as, “Google, MSN, Yahoo and Alta Vista.” Access to your information is restricted to pre-registered healthcare personnel and only accessible to authorized system users via a username and password. The site is completely SSL (Secure Socket Layer) meaning all data is encrypted. Audit Trails are created when someone accesses your data to insure it is only being accessed in times of emergency or upon your authorization in a non-emergency situation. Inappropriate or unauthorized access to your data is subject to HIPAA fines and imprisonment.

04. Question: What is HIPAA?

04. Answer: HIPAA stands for, “Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act” which is a 1996 legislation that includes standards relating to how data must be transmitted over a public network. Some of these standards relating to data security address the following:

• - Access Control: (Unique User ID, Emergency Access Procedures, Automatic Logoff, Encryption and Decryption.)
• - Auditing: (Implement hardware, software, and/or procedural mechanisms that records and examine activity in information systems that contain protected health information)
• - Integrity: (Mechanism to authenticate electronic protected health information)
• - Person or Entity Authentication: (Implement procedures to verify that a person or entity seeking access to electronic protected health information is the one claimed.)
• - Transmission Security: (Implement technical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to electronic protected health information that is being transmitted over an electronic communications network.)

05. Question: How safe is my data compared to online purchases using credit cards?

05. Answer: EmergiLink subscriber’s data is safer than most if not all online transactions because of the strict HIPAA laws that govern the safety and security of Internet applications such as EmergiLink. Because the website you are accessing is private, it is not searchable from typical search engines and additionally, the entire application is SSL protected and includes more security standards than most if not all other e-commerce related Internet sites.

06. Question: What happens if while creating my membership account, my computer freezes or I am kicked offline?

06. Answer: We have redundancy in place to prevent this from happening, but in the unlikely event that it does…once you have created Step 1 (creating username and password) you will be able to log back in under “My Account,” by entering your recently created username and password and complete your application.

07. Question: How will I know when my membership is about to expire?

07. Answer: You will receive an automatic email one month and 2 weeks prior to your renewal data stating your account will be automatically billed and renewed with the credit card information you have on file.

08. Question: How do I delete my account?

08. Answer: In the event you want to delete any of your “co-members,” you are able to do that by simply logging into your account. To delete your “primary membership,” you will need to send an email to info@emergilink.com  requesting to have your account deleted.

09. Question: How do I edit my membership or any of my co-members?

09. Answer: You can edit any of your members by logging on to “My Account,” select the member you want to edit, and use the menu list to jump to the area of the member’s profile you want to edit. In cases where a section already has data entered into it, you will see blank fields appear on top of data you have previously entered. You can either enter new data and save or edit the data you previously entered and save.

10. Question: How will emergency medical personnel search my information?

10. Answer: Authorized emergency personnel already have established usernames and passwords that they will enter into a secure “Subscriber Search” page to search you in the EmergiLink database. Members of the public do not have access to this site. They will have two ways to search for your profile:

1. Using one of the two (2) index fingers that you enrolled in Step 3 of your application.
2. Using the text based search by entering three specific personal identifiers such as; your full name, SS# and date of birth.

11. Question: How will my department benefit by hosting EmergiLink ESP in our community?

11. Answer: ESP will give your personnel an important tool that will:

• Reduce time spent on scene trying to obtain vital patient information
• Reduce time providing potentially life saving treatment resulting in the reduction and prevention of patientdiscomfort, injury and even death.
• Reduce time to transport to the hospital.
• Provide next of kin contact information to facilitate rapid contact of a family member
• Provide insurance information allowing a more painless billing procedure for the patient.

12. Question: What does it cost my organization to be an EmergiLink ESP provider?

12. Answer: Setting up the program for your organization has some initial setup fees that are later fully recoverable depending on the level of participation in your service area. Since the program is Internet based, you will need Internet access that can be initiated on your existing Mobile Data Terminals or through the delivery device you chose to use with your organizations EPCR (Electronic Patient Care Reporting) program. You will also need BlueTooth software and dongle installed in the computer(s) you will use to access subscriber data.

13. Question: What type of training is involved with using the system?

13. Answer: The program is straight forward and very easy to use. EmergiLink personnel will provide a Train-The-Trainer type program along with an instructional Power-Point presentation. We also offer a comprehensive online training demonstration on our web site.

14. Question: How do members of the community attach their fingerprints with their membership accounts?

14. Answer: Initially, membership accounts can be created without enrolling their fingerprints. EmergiLink recommends that you provide an enrollment period when implementing the program that allows new members to come to fire station or emergency room locations to enroll their fingerprints with their established accounts.

15. Question: How do we market the program to our community?

15. Answer: There are several ways to do this. EmergiLink recommends the following:

1. Hand out flyers on medical aid calls
2. Use your existing PR channels to promote the program (Cable TV, Newsletters, inserts in utility bills, newspaper advertisements, banners and via partnerships established in the community)

16. Question: Where are the ESP member profiles stored?

16. Answer: Through our partnership with biometrics company Cogent Systems, ESP profiles are stored on a secure server and the system is also hosted on site at their headquarters in South Pasadena, CA. There are many redundancies in place and failover solutions that would insure system up time, 99.99% of the time.

17. Question: How will paramedics that access ESP profiles know if the data they are seeing is current?

17. Answer: All ESP memberships are time stamped at the top of the profile that is accessed. This shows the date their profile was initiated and also shows the last time they viewed their profile or even when they made changes to it as well as what specific changes were made.

18. Question: What 3rd party vulnerability and/or penetration testing has been completed to provide assurance that the privacy of the data can't be compromised?

18. Answer: The information is encrypted using industry standard 128bit encryption with SSL

We are adhering to the necessary procedures to be compliant with the Sarbanes Oxley requirements.

We are using Cogent System’s (NASDAQ: COGT) Data Center to house our data (see attached Data Center Operation Narrative)

We have carried out usability testing at several beta sites with software to verify different categories of vulnerability such as:

• OS specific bugs, exploits, vulnerabilities and security holes
• Weaknesses in firewall and routers among different brands
• Exploitations of web-server scripts
• Exploitable shares and trusts between systems and files

19. Question: What is the hospital liability/license agreement?

19. Answer: Refer to Terms and Conditions Document

The data a member enters into their profile should be relied on just as if a patient was filling out a medical questionnaire at a doctor’s office or being interviewed by a healthcare professional during a medical emergency or routine appointment. In many cases this information should be more accurate as it is gathered and inputted in a non-emergency situation, in the privacy of ones home, with no time restraints and where most of their records are accessible.

Before a membership or co-membership is created, the Terms and Conditions carefully spell out the intent of the program, how their data will be used, the security in place to protect their data and how it is of critical importance that the information they input is accurate and up-to-date. They also agree to hold all healthcare professionals harmless in regards to the use of their information during a medical emergency where their data may later be discovered to have been inaccurate or outdated resulting in further injury or even death.

20. Question: What happens if EMT's or Paramedics swipe finger prints and they rarely find subscribers in the database and get tired of trying- they will no longer use?

20. Answer: This issue can be resolved with a comprehensive co-marketing plan that involves the EMS provider and all area hospitals. This will achieve two very important steps:

Community buy-in resulting in a large amount of participants. The ability for EmergiLink to become a household name where eventually EMS Providers and hospital personnel will ask everyone if they are an EmergiLink participant. The small percentage of patients that are actually unconscious will most likely be the ones whose prints are automatically scanned.

EmergiLink is also a new program with a concept many healthcare professionals have been waiting to see and participate in for many years now. This was recently evident by the overwhelming response by all hospitals we visited in Las Vegas.

Like any new program, critical mass may take some time to achieve. EmergiLink knows this program will need the blessing of EMS providers and hospitals to be successful. We are also discussing partnerships with hospital insurance companies.

EmergiLink will not attempt to run this program in the community without a joint marketing effort and participation from healthcare organizations considered to be EmergiLink ESP Access Points. For this very reason, we separate ourselves from any like-companies who for years have attempted to provide online medical records programs, literally, from their websites.

21. Question: What fingers do you use, why is thumb different from index fingers?

21. Answer: The fingerprint enrollment template calls for the left and right index finger. If any of a member’s index fingers is missing, they can use the next finger on the same hand. When searching a member’s print in the field, they will only need one finger.

22. Question: Can there be special links to rare diseases?

22. Answer: EmergiLink will most likely not offer links to rare disease or other healthcare related sites. The reason for this is that we have a very clear focus and want the community to realize that.

23. Question: Will people be honest about questions? i.e.- how many drinks, do they use illegal drugs...

23. Answer: In regards to people being honest about what they put on their profiles, we believe they will be as honest as they would to their personal physician. The more they tell, the more efficient they are treated. It will be clear to member’s who will see their data in times of emergency and only at their approval during routine medical visits.

Also knowing they have to be physically present during the search of their profile with their fingerprints; will give them a strong sense of security in knowing authorized users cannot blindly search the EmergiLink database looking for someone they may know.

24. Question: System performance...how do we know the product will be available when we need it?

24. Answer: EmergiLink and our partner, Cogent Systems, can insure the servers that host EmergiLink subscriber data are up and running on our end, 99% of the time. We can insure this with the levels of redundancy we have in place that include fail-over solutions. We cannot insure there will always be internet access to access our servers. Internet access depends on the wireless connectivity in the various service areas. Also, we cannot control the functionality of the computers used in the field to access the Internet and our servers.

25. Question: How do you protect against phishing or fraud?

25. Answer: Very much the same way institutions such as banks and large multi-national companies like eBay – Education. More information on Phishing and fraud can be seen in the "Security" section of our website.