RapidSOS Haven app shares location & health information with 911 dispatchers

A new health app, RapidSOS’ Haven app, could help deliver emergency care to patients who call 911 by automatically sharing their location information when calling from their smartphone.

Despite the fact that you can call 911 anywhere in the country, emergency services in the US are surprisingly fragmented and somewhat antiquated. Even though Google Maps knows exactly where you are, when you call 911 from your smartphone, the person you’re talking to often doesn’t get that same information. We talked recently about how Google Europe is launched an Emergency Location Service for Android phones that will share that information with emergency services automatically.

The Haven app from RapidSOS tries to address this problem in the US. Basically, the Haven app lets you call 911 through the app. It then shares location and health history, which you enter when setting up the app, with the dispatcher.

After setting up your profile in the Haven app, it’s pretty easy to use – the app opens directly to the call screen. It also has a texting feature that you lets you communicate via text messages with the 911 dispatcher.

It also has some other really interesting features including an international emergency feature that has the local “911” equivalent number for countries all over the world. Another interesting feature is Family Connect. Like some other apps, it lets you share your location and “check in” with family & friends to let them know you’ve arrived at your destination. The more innovative part of this feature though is that it lets your family & friends call 911 on your behalf, sharing your location & health history when they do.

One concern I did have about the Haven app was buried in its Privacy Policy, where there’s a license to use everything you enter into the app in any way RapidSOS wants. I’ve read a fair number of health app privacy policies and this seems like incredibly broad language. Before I recommend this to patients, I’d want to see some clarification here (I’ve asked for it and will update the review if we get more information).

One other caveat I’ll add to this review is that I did not test whether it delivers the information as promised, for obvious reasons. I did contact RapidSOS who assured us that it works with all 911 dispatch centers in the US.