Alpharetta, Georgia entrepreneur Jennifer Sparks is on a mission to change how we think about our vital health records.
Today, crucial health data that first responders or emergency personnel need during a crisis is simply not easily accessible. And that can be the difference between life or death for someone in the middle of a natural disaster, a man-made catastrophe, or a personal medical emergency.
Sparks saw the need to streamline emergency preparedness and response data, which ultimately led to the start of MyHealthID Global.
As the name suggests, the Georgia-based startup looks to be a global solution to a universal problem within the emergency preparedness space. Its PreRescue and Priority Rescue features allow users to update their health records and history ahead of time in an app to ensure that information is easily accessible and shareable to first responders at their exact location at the time of an emergency.
“Whether it is an active shooter that has locked down an entire city in Maine, a fire in Maui, flooding in NYC or the most recent rapid intensification Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico — repeatedly we’re seeing the same pattern — jurisdictions caught flat footed with no mechanism for offering rapid assistance to vulnerable populations during emergencies because they have no idea where they are,” she said. “With PreRescue and Priority Rescue, we are providing citizens a way to opt-in well in advance of an emergency to share lifesaving health data and their geolocation on a permission basis that will bring precision medicine to emergency preparedness and response. We know that by streamlining critical health records management, we will help jurisdictions improve the allocation of scarce resources and most importantly, we will save lives.”
Opting In
The goal of the platform is to improve safety, compliance and emergency preparedness. And the opting in part is crucial, Sparks underscored. Health records are shared based on the user’s discretion and are only available to organizations when that information is necessary.
“Sharing doesn’t mean that your data just wholesale gets shipped off to everybody. It’s only accessible in the event that there is an emergency,” Sparks said, whether someone finds themselves in the middle of a natural disaster, man-made disaster, or a personal medical emergency.
Building Emergency Tech
MyHealthID Global and its PreRescue and Priority Rescue platform are a natural extension of Sparks’ original HealthTech startup VacMobile, which had more of a focus on vaccination and testing verification. VacMobile grew out of Sparks’ own frustration getting all of the vaccination records she needed for her kids to start a new school together in one place (a pain point that many parents can relate to).
The team joined the ATDC Accelerate Program in 2022 and started to pivot towards emergency preparedness after Sparks connected with major emergency response organizations like the United States First Responder Association and the Medical Reserve Corps of Southern Arizona last year.
As Sparks and her team work on rolling out PreRescue and Priority Rescue, she said that the team needs help “making jurisdictions aware that there is an efficient, cost-effective, life-saving solution to improve emergency preparedness and response.”
