Healthcare providers today struggle with major global challenges related to a growing elderly population, limitations in financing, etc. One tool to address these is eHealth. The ambulance service is very much a part of this process and will therefore have to change its way of working and the equipment and tools being used accordingly. Pre-hospital eHealth tools and solutions will exhibit an accelerated need in the years to come.
Every healthcare stakeholder today struggle with the same main challenges, i.e. how do we increase efficiency, patient security and improve medical outcome. The background is a growing elderly population, financing difficulties, lack of human resources, observations of unsatisfactory patient security resulting in unnecessary deaths and mistakes, etc. Various tools are proposed to improve the situation; eHealth being one of them. Utilizing eHealth solutions make it possible to securely communicate relevant information between stakeholders, implement fast tracks and clinical pathways, speed-up process development and make vital information instantly available where needed. It also can improve care processes, documentation, patient security, quality, audit and follow-up. All of this is in favor of the big challenges and relevant for the pre-hospital care as well as other areas.
Generally the ambulance service is becoming more and more an integrated part of the overall healthcare environment. The integration and co-operation with hospital care is constantly increasing, and the care provided, and the decisions being made, get more and more qualified and advanced. The ambulance service is in many cases the first link in a fast track or care process, e.g. handling of Acute Coronary Syndrome (AMI and PCI), stroke, trauma or fall patients. Apart from these acute situations concepts like “treat & leave” and “treat & refer” are constantly gaining more focus in order to provide more appropriate and efficient care for all parties. Finally the impact of guidelines, best practice, standardized treatment protocols and procedures are increasing. Various triage methods and acronyms like PHTLS, AMLS and ACLS clearly illustrate this. All together this results in an accelerating need for supporting pre-hospital eHealth solutions and a demand for flexible, stable and certified ICT-tools, or eHealth platforms, in the ambulance that can support today’s needs as well as tomorrows. In the ambulance specifically this platform shall be capable of handling all documentation needs, decision support, communication, vital monitoring and telemedicine. Thereby it becomes the main working tool for en-route diagnose and decisions on patient treatment and logistics.
The working situation in the ambulance is very unique. The equipment shall in many instances be possible to use both inside and outside of the ambulance. This calls for well-designed user interfaces, robustness and low weight on the parts that shall be carried. One piece of equipment that is always present in an ambulance is a defibrillator. From originally being a pure therapeutic device, some have now developed into a combined therapeutic device and a monitor; some also with basic telemedicine functionality (transmission of 12-lead snap-shots). Typically these devices become rather heavy, typically 8 to 12 Kilo. Furthermore they don’t have the flexibility, design or computer power to act as eHealth platform and support the accelerating needs for eHealth we today observe. To do so they must be complemented with another device, typically some kind of PC with dedicated software, which adds on to the total weight; now ending at 10 to 15 Kilo.
A well-designed eHealth platform can handle all defibrillator functionalities, apart from the therapeutic part, but also as described a lot more. Furthermore defibrillation is not very commonly performed, according to some sources in just around 1% of the calls, while eHealth platform functionalities like monitoring, documentation etc. in contrary is carried out in almost every call. Therefore the natural way is to let the defibrillator remain a pure therapeutic device and let the eHealth platform take care of the rest. This results in a flexible solution and less weight to carry, typically less than 6 kilo using an AED or in special cases and applications a lightweight monitor/defibrillator.
Through MobiMed Ortivus can provide the eHealth tools and solutions needed for the ambulance service to be able to meet today’s and tomorrows healthcare challenges. MobiMed also complies in all aspects with the new modified EU medical device directive now also applicable to software. This isn’t the case for all eHealth related software being used today in the ambulance service.
Core Messages:
The need for integrated pre-hospital eHealth solutions promoting increased efficiency, better treatment outcome and patient security are accelerating
The fulfillment of these needs require a flexible pre-hospital eHealth platform to handle IT-support, communication and integration with various stakeholders and systems
Traditional defibrillators cannot fulfill these demands
The modified EU-directives for medical devices, now also more pronounced including software, implies that also ambulance ePR solutions etc. shall comply with these directives. Not all providers today fulfill this.
The pre-hospital working environment requires low weight and thought thru user interfaces in order to cope with the growing ICT requirements
Ortivus MobiMed, in combination with selected AED:s or Monitor Defibrillators, can support the combined tasks of eHealth and defibrillator functionality at a reasonable weight (below 6 Kilo).
Links:
How to support ACS
How to support Stroke
How to support “Treat & Leave” and “Treat & Refer”