Mobile Telemedicine: Transiting Patients

In this post I am going to talk about the importance of telecommunication technologies in ambulance during the process of patient transportation. This application of telemedicine have significant benefits to patients and care givers and present great opportunities for hospitals.

First let’s look at the application of telemedicine in emergency care. Patients who had to be transferred to hospitals by ambulance usually require instant care by care givers and doctors. However without doctors and specialists on the ambulance, emergency care givers could only provide basic life-sustaining cares. Many lives had been lost in the ambulance on the way to hospitals. To give the needed care at the earliest possible time, University of Maryland Medical Center and University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore established the first ambulance equipped with video and computer technology to assess and treat stroke patients¹. This invention was partnered with TRW Inc. and partially funded by National Library of Medicine¹.

 Providing two-way audio and video communication between ambulance and a computer in a doctor’s office, the new system had successfully transported 12 stroke patients in test runs¹. There would be more sophisticated equipment installed in this system, allowing doctors to examine patients before they reach the hospital to determine which treatment would be required¹.

According to the American Heart Association, Stroke is the leading cause of disability for U.S. adults¹. Every year about 750,000 Americans suffer from a stroke¹. However, only a small percentage of them were able to get the drug they needed within a 3-hour window. By using this now telemedicine system on ambulance, more stroke patients would be benefited from real-time diagnosis and treatment from doctors even before they were transported to hospitals.

Stroke patients will more likely to choose hospitals with such services. Embracing telemedicine in ambulance would signficantly increase the quality of services provided by hospitals and thus increase the competitive advantages of hospitals with such technologies.

Reference:

1.       http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/telemedicine.htm