Name: Check. Phone number: Check. Pets: Check. Allergies: Check. Contact information: Check. A Smart911 profile can help emergency personnel get victims the aid they need. And in Arkansas, the service is provided free to all residents.

Profiles automatically appear for the dispatcher when a 911 call comes from a phone number registered with Smart911, said Teresa Hudson, a dispatcher with the Springdale Police Department.

She noted the profile can tell the dispatcher what medications a person takes, if he has any allergies, if he has any medical conditions, if he’s learning disabled or hearing impaired. The dispatcher then passes that information on to the emergency personnel working the case.

In the case of a fire, Smart911 can provide the dispatcher with a picture of the house, how many stories, pets on site, vehicles and more, she said.

One local call was about a man having chest pains, but the paramedics rushing to the scene didn’t know about his cardiac history. The operator relayed that information to the paramedics, who then were quicker to assess the situation, and the man was taken to the hospital after his heart attack.

“It was a help that day,” Hudson said.

“Most days, no one cares that I have a penicillin allergy,” said Todd Piett, chief product officer for Rave Mobile Safety, the company that created Smart911. “But Smart911 shares that information when it’s needed.”

Entries on pets and children provide an uplink for pictures.

“This is good in the case of missing children or abducted children or runaways,” Piett said. “This can save time in getting the picture out to officers.”

The dispatcher can send it straight to the officer via a computer system that puts a laptop computer in all police vehicles — rather than having to retrieve a photo from the parents, make copies of the picture, and wait for officers to return to the station to get the picture.

“Smart911 provides citizens a single place to manage their information,” Piett said.

Piett shared a 911 call from a Smart911 user — a mother whose child went missing between school and day care. The dispatcher was able to omit some of the basic questions asked of a 911 caller and went straight to current information about the child: What was she wearing? Where was she last seen?

“So the searchers could go straight to that location and disperse,” Piett said.

Several people and several phone numbers — home, cell, office — can be registered with each Smart911 profile.

When a “land line” is used to call 911, the address connected to that phone number is available to the dispatcher to speed response time. But in the case of a cellphone call, that information is not available. Dispatchers can retransmit the number and locate it in a general location only. Smart911 provides both the registered address and the approximate location.

Even “hangups” are investigated by service personnel, so that extra information helps, Hudson said.

“It’s not your best day when you call 911,” Piett said. “Oftentimes, in an emergency, people can’t communicate clearly. Or it might be the case of a home invasion, and the person is afraid to talk.”

He shared another case when a woman was abducted. Police had a description of her car from Smart911 and saw that car sitting in a driveway. They went in safely and found the woman.

Another Smart911 profile listed a boy as having an allergy to latex, but the parent who called 911 forgot to mention it, Piett continued. The dispatcher told the paramedics as they rode to the scene, so they prepared in advance — rather than having to waste time on the scene or causea life-threatening situation.

Smart911 also stores information about others who should be contacted in the case of an emergency.

Hudson noted that very few people calling 911 have registered with Smart911 — maybe 20 a month.

“That’s a very small percentage,” she said. In January, the Springdale Police Department logged 14,639 calls.

Both she and Piett admit residents might worry about privacy issues.

The Smart911 profiles can be accessed by only the 911 operators — officers, firefighters, paramedics and other in the field cannot. “Most of the time, they don’t know the information comes from Smart911,” Hudson said.

Additionally, 911 operators can’t retrieve the information later than 45 minutes after the call, she said.

Hudson added that the Smart911 profile provides dispatchers with only information the citizen provides.

“The system is completely opt-in,” Piett said. “You provide only what you want. We don’t ask for Social Security numbers, credit card numbers.”

Piett noted that the company does undergo regular security audits. “And if we did get hacked, all they would learn is that you have a Latex allergy,” he said.

Additionally, the profiles must be updated every six months, or they are dropped, Hudson said. The Smart911 system will send a text message or email requesting that update.

The state has provided most 911 dispatch operations with the Smart911 system, making it available free. Additionally, the system works in other locations that employ the system — Nashville, Seattle, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and 450 other 911-centers in 38 states, Piett said.

Smart911 users also have the chance to register information with emergency management personnel, with the information used to help plan and prepare for disasters such as storms or attacks, Piett noted.

The website gives citizens the opportunity to list household members who rely on electricity for medical equipment. The site asks if enough food and water is available for 72 hours in case they need to “shelter in place,” if an alternative place to stay is available, if the resident has carriers for pets or other items to be used or borrowed in a state of emergency.

“The site will actually ask if it’s OK to share the data with emergency management personnel,” Piett said. “If you say, ‘No,’ it’s kept private.”