Businesses, employees and their families throughout the Neponset Valley now have access to a digital medical records system that will ensure the availability of vital and potentially life-saving medical information during an emergency.

The Neponset Valley Chamber of Commerce (NVCC) and Caritas Norwood Hospital are taking a leadership role in partnering with online-registries (www.onlineregistries.com).

online-registries (OLR) is a digital medical records company that provides safe, secure, private, and affordable storage of vital personal records, combined with the ability to access and share those records with designated emergency healthcare providers.

“This is a program that employers can offer their employees, which benefits them greatly, potentially even saving their lives or the lives of their loved ones,” said Leslie Lockard, NVCC Chairman of the Board and an employment attorney with Gaffin, Krattenmaker & O’Connor.

“I think the provision of timely information in an emergency situation is critical,” said William Fleming, Chief Operations Officer of Caritas Norwood Hospital. “To have online-registries make this available in a hospital emergency room will tremendously increase patient safety.

“The partnership with online-registries will enable Caritas Norwood to provide safe patient care more quickly by having essential medical information available,” he said. “In addition, having instant access to patients’ medical proxies will enable the hospital to follow the patients’ desires for their medical treatment.”

During emergencies, essential information (e.g. medications, allergies, blood type and pre-existing conditions) is often is not available, resulting in misdiagnoses and delayed, unwanted, unnecessary, or improper treatment, according to David Stern President and CEO of OLR, headquartered in Newport, RI.

“When your life is on the line and every second counts, OLR gives those that need to know immediate access to your information so that the hospital can provide appropriate care without any delays,” he said. “OLR provides automatic and immediate notification to your care community in the event of an emergency.”

“We only grow by becoming and remaining important to our members,” said Douglas Wynne, President and CEO of the NVCC. “To do that, the Chamber must present outstanding values. That is why we are proud to provide online-registries’ services to our members. Safety, speed and solid data during an emergency’s ‘golden hour’ are all vital to maintaining our members’ health and well-being and that of their employees. These are potentially life-saving programs that every business should embrace.

OLR is in discussions with the Massachusetts Hospital Association to establish an affinity partnership, Stern said. The firm is also working with several Chambers of Commerce in Massachusetts and throughout the nation to make its services available to their members and employees.

Anyone can register for one or all of the following OLR services: med records, med proxy, senior records and kid records at www.onlineregistries.com. Each costs $19.95 initially and $9.95 annually.

A Robert Wood Johnson Foundation survey found that 95 percent of physicians said they have witnessed serious medical errors, while a 1999 Institute of Medicine study concluded that hospital mistakes might contribute to the deaths of 44,000 to 98,000 Americans annually.