Communication when it counts

People with injuries have small electronic tags hung round their necks, while medical personnel carry PDAs; the system thus provides a straightforward means of communication between victims and treatment centre. Photo montage: Tor Åsmund Evjen

New technology identifies the injured and provides efficient communication in catastrophes.

By Åse Dragland

Think of a railway accident or a fire in a hotel. In a situation with hundreds of injured people, recording information is a problem. How does one start? How can we make a rapid survey of the catastrophe? How to systematise the information and pass it on? Medical personnel always have an urgent need for information about the injured, and they have to keep in contact with each other at the site of the emergency.

Wireless transmission
Now, SINTEF scientists have developed a system called FieldCare, that provides efficient radio communication between medical personnel, transport workers and hospitals, so that the treatment centre can work out who needs to be mobilised and who and what will be needed of neurologists and operating theatres, for example.
Each injured person has a little electronic tag or "Personal Information Carrier" with information about his medical condition hung round his neck. In a military setting, it is realistic to assume that soldiers will wear such a tag permanently. In civilian catastrophe situations it is more likely that emergency workers will carry a supply of tags that they can attach to injured people. These will need to have the data entered from scratch.

Medical personnel are equipped with small hand-held PCs known as Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) which can register data that have already been recorded on the ID tag as well as enter new information about the victim. Doctors can speak directly into their PDAs and thus avoid having to use pen and paper on the scene of the catastrophe. They fill in a checklist of essential items such as pulse, heart-rate, blood pressure and interim diagnosis, and the data are sent immediately to the treatment centre or hospital.
When a major disaster occurs, there will be a medical leader and coordinator on the scene. FieldCare also takes care of this aspect: the coordinator has a portable PC which is in contact with all the PDAs currently in use. This gives him or her overviews and status reports without disturbing the work of the other personnel.

System "Parat"
Systems of this sort are also being developed elsewhere, but the SINTEF scientists have an ace up their sleeve; they have already developed a system called "Parat" for communication in noisy surroundings. An earplug that includes a miniature loudspeaker and both internal and external microphones is inserted into the ear. The earplug shuts out the noise but allows speech to pass, thanks to the electronics built into a microchip. In a disaster situation, where noise is being generated by many sources such as people, helicopters and vehicles, a system of this sort will be extremely useful.

"When this is combined with the PDA, medical personnel will be able to communicate freely with colleagues and coordinators," says Joe Gorman of SINTEF. He believes that the FieldCare system will be capable of being expanded to encompass safety, suitably adapted information systems and wireless sensors.
"Sensors are already commercially available that can measure a patient's temperature and blood pressure. The challenge is to find a means of transmitting these signals by radio to a computer," says Gorman.

Contact: Joe Gorman,
SINTEF Telecom and Informatics
Tel: +47 73 59 70 85
Email: Joe.Gorman@sintef.no