Swisstransplant, the Swiss national foundation for organ donation and transplantation in conjunction with Dr. Jocelyn Corniche – anaesthetist at CHUV (Vaudois University Hospital Centre in Switzerland) and REGA (Swiss Air Rescue Service) – have just launched the world’s first donor card on Smartphone.
The card can be downloaded via a free app known as Echo112, which “allows the user to contact the local emergency services and discloses his/her exact location, either in Switzerland or abroad,“, explained a Swisstransplant spokesperson in the press release. Once the donor card has been downloaded, a photo can be included together with the “next of kin’s contact details taken directly from telephone contacts“.
The procedure is straightforward: as soon as “the patient arrives in the emergency unit of a participating Swiss hospital, his/her donor card is automatically displayed on the Smartphone, even if it is locked, since the necessary information will have been submitted via the Echo112 application”.
As far as the sponsors are concerned, this electronic donor card “is an important step that aims to simplify the availability and accessibility of the donor card and the voluntary declaration to donate organs” explained Franz Immer, Director of Swisstransplant.
Communiqué de presse de Swisstransplant – Sciences et Avenir Santé (Lise Loumé) 01/09/2014