Fifteen years ago, the Liberty County EMS in Texas, was the first to use the Disaster Relief and Emergency Medical System (DREAMS) telemedicine system in a major disaster. The system a $14 million digital ambulance telemedicine research project was developed by the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command http://mrmc.amedd.army.mil and (TATRC) with additional support from the Texas A&M University System www.tamu.edu and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston www.uth.edu.
This system was the first and only to be successfully deployed sending live interactive video, voice, complete patient physiological data, and fully integrating a live e-Patient Medical Call Record to physicians at the hospital. The system was developed over seven years culminating with the historical use of the system in a major disasters in the aftermath of hurricanes Rita, Ike, and Katrina.
The DREAMS project was the first communications system functioning transparently over wireless cellular, 3G satellite, and military data radio systems. It is still the only system integrating these mobile connectivity systems which has been expanded to 4G, LTE, LTE-X, and fixed networking.
In 2010, the exclusive world-wide rights to the DREAMS technologies were acquired by LifeBot www.lifeBot.us which miniaturized the system, made it lightweight and portable, and has integrated new technologies into the systems such as portable ultrasound.
Today LifeBot™ cloud services are able to replicate patient EMRs with related physiological and call data to all ambulances or LifeBot units within a select EMS system. A simple swipe of a driver’s license or ID care on its built in bar-code scanner instantly displays the patient’s complete history. It is the only system where records may be accessed within a second, even if the networking is offline.