When a member of Mountain Brook Baptist Church, Birmingham, fell through a floor to the floor below and crushed both her ankles during a Builders for Christ trip last summer, Assistant Minister Jeff Greer learned something important.
"You almost can’t create for a church a document that will contain all the medical information you need for a situation like that. Medical history, blood type, allergies — it would’ve been helpful to have all that information at our fingertips and we didn’t have it," Greer said.
That’s when church member Don Moore knew he could help.
Soon after the accident, Greer linked up with Moore, director of business development for Birmingham-based WebSafe, to set up an arrangement that allowed for more documentation for missions trip participants but less actual paperwork to carry around.
"Our Web site — think of it as a virtual safety deposit box. You can download important documents in your Web safe and have access anywhere you have an Internet connection," Moore said. "It’s secure and simple to use but really safe."
To use WebSafe, an individual sets up an account and for a small monthly fee, uploads documents from medical records and passport copies to wedding photos and birth certificates. Power of attorney, living wills and "do not resuscitate" orders can also be stored here and used by anyone who has the access code.
"There was a lot of time spent developing to make sure we had something really secure before we went live with it (last summer)," Moore said.
The information is stored in Birmingham and backed up in another city.
Mountain Brook Baptist has since used WebSafe for its winter retreat and youth trips and is planning to use it to hold paperwork for its international missions trip this summer, Greer said.
"It makes it easier for us to have a lot of comprehensive information on everyone. We start out offering the WebSafe account to them for free and the church picks up the cost. Then we encourage them to continue their subscription," he explained.
The decision took church leaders from having to keep up with mounds of paperwork to having everything they needed at the click of a mouse, Greer said.
Individuals can change their password to a temporary one while on a trip so that church leaders can access their account if needed and then switch it to a new password once the team returns.
For more information, visit www.websafe.com. (TAB)
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