CodeHeart Sends Real-time Emergency Vitals from Ambulances to Physicians

Washington Hospital Center has unveiled a secure mobile application for smartphones, desktops, and tablets developed in conjunction with AT&T that streams real-time video and audio from critical care situations such as ambulances in transit to awaiting emergency care centers.

CodeHeart could be extremely beneficial to time management within patient care. Because it would allow doctors to gather information before the patient was present, treatment could then begin immediately upon their arrival, saving valuable time. For example, cardiologists could, in real-time, view a patient’s condition while simultaneously speaking to the patient’s attending Emergency Department physician. CodeHeart also provides the ability to view vital signs and test results such as electrocardiograms captured through the real-time video feed. The feeds are also archived, allowing physicians to view the data at a later time if necessary.

"When it comes to treating a patient who appears to be suffering from chest pain or other heart attack symptoms, every second counts. CodeHeart delivered from AT&T's network helps us provide optimal care as quickly as possible and effectively treat every heart patient that comes to our facility," said Lowell Satler, MD, director of Interventional Cardiology at the Hospital Center.

The application is already available to six hospitals and patients served by the Washington Hospital Center, some as far as hundreds of miles away. It enables communication between physicians and first responders ahead of time, allowing caregivers time to strategize preparation by the emergency center, dispatch care to patients unable to be transported, or to allocate physicians to the most critical patients on arrival.

Dr. Satler describes the necessity of CodeHeart in a video demonstration on ATTEnterprise’sYoutube channel.

“The reason for the CodeHeart Program was allowing us to rapidly respond to an acute cardiac emergency. Traditionally when a patient has a heart attack, the diagnosis is often made by an electrocardiogram. The physician would contact another physician and ask them to assist with the interpretation of the ECG.”

Previous to CodeHeart, Washington Hospital Center relied on fax machines to send this data, sometimes taking upwards of 10 minutes for receive information. CodeHeart gives physicians a direct video link to colleagues and “immediately see another physician” and interact with them “in a way so that you can plan for a patient.”

“In the future we would be able to not only use it for cardiac patients, but for stroke patients, for patience with trauma. Any type of emergency evaluation in which having more specialty support on scene would be of value.”

Source: Mobile Health News