Since 9/11, emergency medical services teams across the
country have been looking at ways to improve field operations during
catastrophic emergencies. “Getting equipment through a debris pile could take
minutes, or sometimes hours, depending on where the victim is trapped,” said
Mike Kurtz, the medical team coordinator for the Pennsylvania Urban Search and
Rescue (PA USAR) Task Force. His group is one of 28 federally mandated
specialized task forces in the United States mobilized in emergencies involving
mass casualties or collapsed structures.“Sometimes, my group gets into confined space they can barely fit through,” Kurtz explained. “So they need smaller devices to get into those areas and rapidly evaluate a patient’s need for treatment.” Some of the technology they have since implemented can prove beneficial to other medical organizations that depend on immediate access to data in the field. Let’s look at one solution that is already paying off for this team.
Med-Media to the rescue
When his team returned from the World Trade Center disaster, Kurtz decided to investigate technology that would help medical personnel perform triage more easily under adverse conditions. He turned to a source already familiar to him: Med-Media, a Harrisburg, PA-based software company specializing in public safety solutions. As a full-time employee of the Life Lion Air Medical Service out of Penn State University Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA, and a volunteer at the Dauphin-Middle Paxton Ambulance Service, Kurtz was a daily user of Med-Media’s medical reference software on his Palm personal data assistant.
“What we were looking for was to lighten our load,” said Kurtz. “The USAR medical team already carries about 60 pounds of equipment to do their jobs. Typically, they take three reference guides with them whenever they are called out,” explained Kurtz. He refers to a fire and rescue guide, an emergency medical services guide, and an emergency response guide that informs the medical team of the latest protocols, toxicology, hazardous materials, and other critical data. The three flipbooks together are about five inches thick—a lot of bulk to cope with in a confined space.
To add to the challenges, one of the first diagnostic tools used in a disaster situation is an EKG machine. Weighing about 20 pounds, the typical cardiac monitor is about the size of a home fax unit. If the emergency response team could find a more compact device, one better suited to the confined spaces they usually faced, Kurtz felt his USAR team would be able to assess victims the moment they found them, rather than losing precious minutes waiting to diagnose them after they’d been extricated from the rubble.
What Med-Media offered the PA USAR was a completely off-the-shelf solution of compact hardware and comprehensive reference materials that could aid the team in rapid diagnostics even in the tightest of spaces. The package included:
- Palm m515s in ruggedized titanium cases
- A comprehensive medical reference software library
- ActiveECG, a pocket-sized cardiac monitor
- R-EMStat, an electronic patient data collection system
“A Palm handheld is about a tenth the size of a standard EKG monitor,” explained Kurtz. “And the miniature cardiac monitoring device is about the same size as the Palm.” Compact and lightweight, the two units connected by a simple PC cable make it feasible to do the critical initial assessment on the spot, even in the most precarious environments.
Timely reference
Having a comprehensive reference library embedded on the Palm gives response team personnel instant access to the most up-to-date emergency services information during a disaster. The library is Med-Media’s electronic version of three popular pocket field guides published by Portland, OR-based InforMed: the EMS Field Guide, the Fire Rescue Guide, and the Emergency Responders Terrorism Guide. The paper-based versions of these guides have been in standard use by emergency service professionals for more than a decade. The three electronic versions sell for $29.95 each, with the software regularly updated by Med-Media through a standard Web connection.
“The nice thing about having all this information on the Palm,” said Kurtz, “is that you simply put it in the cradle to get updates. You don’t have to go out and buy a whole new manual. It makes it so much easier to keep abreast of the latest medical treatment protocols, toxicology [poison], and drug lists.”
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