London’s Air Ambulance to use 4G to enhance service

London’s Air Ambulance to use 4G to enhance service

24-Apr-2013 Source: London’s Air Ambulance

London’s Air Ambulance, the charity that delivers an advanced trauma team to critically injured people in London, has formed a strategic partnership with mobile operator EE, to develop new systems that will use 4G technology to enhance its service and cut vital minutes off mission times to benefit its patients.

London’s Air Ambulance has already started using tablet PCs with navigation apps, using EE’s 4G network, in its rapid response cars, which are used at night to deliver a senior trauma doctor and paramedic to the patient.  While the paramedic drives, navigation falls to the doctor.  Previously a traditional A to Z map book was used to plot the route, with a sat nav as back up.  Now the address can be directly inputted into the navigation app on the tablet, which generates a direct route without having to flip through pages on the hard copy map.  This could potentially save up to 2 minutes on dispatch time.  Sat navs and navigation apps using 3G networks have been previously trialled but when travelling on high speed through London, the ability of non-4G services to refresh mapping have failed.

Commenting, Dr Gareth Davies, Medical Director and Chair of the Trustees of London’s Air Ambulance, said: “London’s Air Ambulance attracts senior doctors from all over the world, so their street-by-street knowledge of the capital may be sketchy. It’s a big change from the current reliance on map books. And unlike using a map book, if you do go wrong, the app corrects you immediately.”

In addition, EE is currently looking to develop an application that will reduce the time it takes to get the aircraft airborne. Instead of gathering the data on paper, then running on foot with the paper to the helicopter, it is hoped that the new system will transmit information wirelessly, and instantly, to an on-board iPad, potentially shaving off seconds or even minutes to take-off time.  Dr Davies went on to say: “Our patients have started the dying process as soon as their injury has occurred. Many of them don’t have a pulse, so the time you have to save a life is very short and saving seconds wherever we can all adds up and makes a difference to their outcome.” Take-offs will potentially be minutes sooner.”

London’s Air Ambulance is renowned throughout the world for clinical excellence and innovation. It is this level of excellence that brought about the partnership with EE, the UK’s most advanced digital communications company.

In addition to saving minutes on dispatch time, EE is developing apps for London’s Air Ambulance to manage its data, checklists and paperwork to increase efficiency in the workplace.  London’s Air Ambulance’s Standard Operating Procedures, which are used by other air ambulances worldwide, will also be hosted online using a bespoke cloud application that is also being developed by EE technicians.

About London’s Air Ambulance

London’s Air Ambulance is the Charity that delivers an advanced trauma team to critically injured people in London.

Using a helicopter by day and rapid response cars by night, a doctor and paramedic team can be at a patient’s side within minutes, providing life-saving medical interventions, such as open chest surgery, blood transfusion, and anaesthesia, at the roadside.

London’s Air Ambulance:

Is currently fundraising for a second helicopter
Runs a lottery for £1 per week
Serves the 10 million people who live, work and holiday within the M25
Missions commonly involve serious road traffic collisions, falls from height, industrial accidents, stabbings and shootings
Was founded in 1989
Undertakes 2,000 missions on average per year
Has world’s highest survival rates from interventions such as open heart surgery
Is internationally renowned for clinical excellence and pioneering procedures, such as roadside blood transfusion, that are adopted by other organisations

About EE

EE is the most advanced digital communications company in Britain, providing mobile and fixed-line services to 27 million customers, and is the first company in the UK to provide 4G mobile services alongside fixed-line fibre.

EE is the company that runs the Orange, T-Mobile and EE brands in the UK. Its 4G service covers a third of the population, and EE continues to improve the speed and reach of the UK’s first 4G network. Its fibre service already covers 50% of the population. EE’s mobile service currently provides coverage to 99% of the population with 2G and 98% of the population with 3G.

, , , , , ,

Copyright © 2024 HeliHub

Website by Design Inc

Helihub logo

X