swyMed http://swymedical.swyme.com has joined forces with the Texas Commission on State Emergency Communications (CSEC) https://www.csec.texas.gov and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) www.ttuhsc.edu to work on a new telemedicine pilot project.
This pilot will implement telemedicine between Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers and a select group of trauma centers in rural West Texas where the TTUHSC service area covers 108 counties and 131, 459 square miles.
The plan is to improve patient outcomes by using telemedicine technology to enable trauma surgeons to take an active part in the discussion to distantly direct treatment. Currently, patients can be carried 30, 60, or 90 minutes or more in an ambulance to the nearest hospital only to find that the facility is not equipped to handle their needs.
This may mean that often, the patient may have to be airlifted to a Level 1 trauma center. However, by using telemedicine technologies to discuss their injuries, patients can perhaps be taken to a closer local hospital.
The pilot project will focus on trauma, cardiac and stroke, EMS calls and is based on the idea of providing the Remote Patient Evaluation (RPE) which gives the physician the tools to see and observe the injuries so treatment can begin immediately and the patient can be brought to the most appropriate destination for care.
The pilot swyMed’s telemedicine equipment includes the DOT Telemedicine Backpack http://swymedical.swyme.com/dot-telemedicine-backpack which is now being installed in ten test ambulances where the LTE/4G cellular signal from Verizon and AT&T will be used to link the ambulances to both local trauma centers and the University Medical Center in Lubbock.
Stefano Migliorisi, CEO of swyMed, reports, “swyMed is thrilled to collaborate with TTUHSC to demonstrate how real-time virtual care used in remote areas can bring the right resources to improve patient outcomes and at the same time, improve the efficiency of the healthcare delivery system.”