ECHAS, LLC. is currently developing an app to help patients know when to call 911 for a heart attack, stroke or a related medical emergency. In the product development phase we will be collecting personal health information storage (PHI). Our initial data collection will be performed for the ECHAS One study which will be conducted in Saskatoon, Canada after Ethics Committee approval is obtained.
 
We will interview 200 patients who have called 911 and completed their emergency evaluation.
For medical research purposes it will be essential to collect the patient's name, age and hospital ID number.  Patients will then be assigned an ECHAS identification number.  The linkage between the patents’ personal identifying data and the ECHAS ID number will be retained by ECHAS, LLC. as an internal company document and not provided to 3rd parties. After informed consent is obtained and the ECHAS ID is assigned, we will ask individuals to provide certain items of their baseline health care history that help determine the likelihood that an emergency might exist.
 
We will also obtain information about a recent set of symptoms that might or might not indicate a 911 emergency is present. This information, which will be identified only by the ECHAS ID, will be uploaded via the app to a secure data storage location for analysis. The information will not be shared with institutions or individuals not required for development of the app.
 
ECHAS, LLC. plans a larger prospective study in 4,000 patients.  In this study patients will be directed by the app to create a personal profile containing identifying information that will then be linked to their hospital and EMS utilization records.  The app will assign an ECHAS ID number.   After the upload of the information to a secure ECHAS server and the initiation of data analysis, the identifying data will be separated from the personal health information.
 
This Privacy Protection Policy will be updated as product development continues.