Patent ID: 8243910

Claim:
A method for contacting an individual, the method comprising the steps of: a computer receiving a request from a user to contact an individual; the computer, responsive to finding that the request is a phone call, ringing a telephone of the individual; the computer, responsive to finding that the individual does not answer the telephone, giving the user a choice of leaving voicemail or tracking down the individual; the computer, responsive to a request to track down the individual, checking a first database to verify the user is authorized to track down the individual; the computer, responsive to finding that the user is authorized to track down the individual, taking a first message from the user for the individual; the computer sending a request to the user to indicate if the first message regards an emergency; the computer receiving a response to the sent request from the user; the computer, responsive to the response indicating the first message regards an emergency, locating a record for the individual in a second database; the computer sending the first message to each device in a list of devices in the record; the computer waiting a period of time specified for each device in the record in the second database; and the computer, responsive to an absence of receiving a second message from the individual after waiting the period of time, repeating the sending of the first message and the waiting until the second message is received from the individual.