Guardly Blog
To combat depression in college students it is vital that universities create safety protocols to ensure that students receive immediate medical assistance should their mental state spiral downward. This is one of the most important college health issues and most universities have on-campus physicians and psychiatrists, who can help students overcome severe outbreaks of depression. To treat depression in college students, many universities provide accommodations should the student be unable to attend class due to severe depression. However, despite the accommodations and health-care access that many universities offer students with depression, the current provisions adopted by most schools do not provide adequate protections when an outbreak of depression turns into a medical emergency.
The unfortunate reality is that symptoms for depression can increase and decrease in severity at a moments notice and could demand immediate medical care and/or hospitalization. When a student’s depression leads to a medical emergency, there are currently two primary methods they can use to contact first responders. First, students can use campus emergency phones, which are generally located inside buildings and sparsely along university campus paths; these emergency phones connect students directly to campus security by phone call. Second, students experiencing medical emergencies can use a landline or mobile phone to call 911. The major problem with both of these methods is that they do not provide first responders with important information about the student’s medical illness or prescribed medications, except for what the student may have been able to communicate during the emergency call. Consequently, a student who is making an emergency call due to severe depression cannot be relied upon to convey the precise nature of his or her condition. For example, they may have fainted, become disoriented or could be suicidal. Furthermore, given the fact that many students who attend university live away from home, contacting their families or friends, who may have a better understanding of their condition, could prove to be difficult, if not impossible.
The inability to gather information from a student who is experiencing an emergency, demands a breakthrough technological solution that can immediately provide a student’s medical information to first responders.
Enter Guardly, a venture-backed Toronto start-up with a cutting edge application that solves this and many other college health issues. Guardly, through its Safe Campus Program, offers campus police and public safety departments a game-changing platform to immediately gather medical information about a student undergoing a mental health emergency. Guardly allows students to fill their medical information into a profile so that first-responders have a detailed medical history of any student who uses the application. Therefore, when a student with a severe outbreak of depression sets off a Guardly alert, first-responders will know the student’s exact health profile and will be able to provide improved, potentially life-saving treatment.
Guardly’s mobile application can be used by a student experiencing an emergency to instantly contact campus security, emergency services, and custom groups of people who will be informed when an emergency alert is triggered. Students who have a mental illnesses can group people who may have a specialized understanding of their condition, such as a their family physician, psychiatrist or other mental health practitioner. These people, who may be well acquainted with the student’s medical condition, can offer potentially life-saving information to first responders and university health officials. Depression in college students is a serious mental health issue and Guardly provides schools with a cost-effective mobile emergency response solution that can really help save lives.
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Read our customer campus safety study showing how Guardly helped improve emergency response times by 44% at a school.
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