A mobile system for emergency health care provision via telematics support-"AMBULANCE"

Recent studies conclude that early and specialized prehospital management contributes to emergency case survival. Ambulance personnel, who usually are the first to handle emergency situations, do not have the required theoretical knowledge and experience. Financial and practical reasons do not allow the participation of specialized physicians on ambulance vehicles. Within the framework of the health telematics programme, we have developed a portable medical device that allows telediagnosis, long distance support and teleconsultation of mobile health care providers by specialized physicians. The device allows the transmission of vital biosignals and still images of the patient from the incident place to the hospital. The transmission is performed through the GSM mobile telephony network. The device can telematically "bring" a specialist doctor to the site of the medical emergency, allow him to evaluate patient data and issue directions to the emergency personnel on treatment procedures until the patient is brought to hospital. Due to the need for storing and archiving data being interchanged during the telemedicine sessions, we have equipped the consultation site with a multimedia database able to store and manage the data collected by the "AMBULANCE" system. The performance of the system has been validated in four different countries using a controlled medical protocol.