Wireless Technology Aids Ambulance Patients

Doctors have shown that transmitting live echocardiograms of patients in ambulances to a hospital emergency department (ED) for evaluation saves critical time and may save lives. This new diagnostic technique was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography in Orlando (ASE, FL, USA).

Two-way voice/data communications allowed hospital cardiologists to remotely direct the examinations from as far away as 20 miles while ambulances were traveling an average of 62 miles per hour. Doctors from the Brooke US Army Medical Center (Fort Sam Houston, TX, USA) and engineers from the Southwest Research Institute (San Antonio, TX, USA) used small hand-held ultrasound units configured to transmit 2-D images of the patients' hearts and vessels from the ambulances. The images were transmitted to the hospital using existing metropolitan traffic management fiber optic network, broadband radio technology, and video compression techniques.

"The ability to triage patients before they arrive at the hospital will greatly improve the delivery of patient care, and has particular significance to overburdened emergency rooms and to metropolitan areas clogged with traffic,” said Paul D. Garrett, M.D., lead author of the study.

"By making an existing diagnostic tool live, remote, and mobile, researchers have stepped into the future of telemedicine,” said Randolph P. Martin, M.D., vice president of the ASE.




Related Links:
Brooke Army Medical
Southwest Research In.