Motorola Medical Program Helps Overseas Travelers
<I>Shaumburg, Ill.</I> - High-tech giant Motorola is finding that it pays to worry whether its 50,000 overseas-bound travelers are immunized and prepared for global trips.
Joining a growing number of multinational companies, Motorola last year established an extensive travel health, safety and security program-- and mandated that foreign-bound travelers take advantage of it.
"It ends up saving a lot of lives, not to mention needless worry by family members," said Jack Heisler, director of international benefits for Shaumburg, Ill.-based Motorola. In his 23 years at Motorola, Heisler has dealt with deaths, accidents, evacuations and other disasters befalling international travelers.
Spurred by management to develop a program that would not only protect travelers from contracting diseases while traveling to remote corners of the world, but assist them in the event of trouble, Heisler's department spent four to six months in 1995 researching its options.
The company finally decided to work with International SOS Assistance Inc., a Trevos, Pa., firm, to develop a customized program called Motorola Assist.
By early 1996, Heisler's department began detailing the program's benefits, which include free immunizations and booster shots, access to comprehensive international travel advisories, medical history listed in a database to be accessed only in the event of emergency, referral and payment guarantees to approved physicians and hospitals around the world, emergency evacuation (which can cost up to $100,000 without such a program), emergency message transmission, lost document assistance, translators and interpreters and hospital claims assistance.
To enroll, employees fill out a medical history profile, including all vaccinations, that is stored in International SOS's database. In an emergency, International SOS can access the medical history and verbally relay it to the attending physician. Trying to allay employee concerns about confidentiality of medical records, International SOS has implemented security procedures for data access.
To make it easy for travelers to get proper immunizations and booster shots, Motorola brings in physicians to various locations each month. Employees can call International SOS for travel advisories, referrals to physicians or other assistance.
Although managers of each unit require employees who travel internationally to enroll in Motorola Assist, Heisler encourages compliance by sending each enrollee a travel documents portfolio, along with a Motorola Assist card and a brochure listing the services.
Heisler believes the new program will end up not only saving his company money, but making travelers and their families feel more secure on international trips.