TEEM: Technology-enhanced emergency management for supporting data communication during patient transportation

In this article, the authors describe a client-server architecture, designed for supporting data recording and transmission during emergency patient transportation by ambulance. The clients are a set of mobile apps, interfaced to the monitoring devices in the ambulance, that automatically send all the recorded data to a server at the destination center. One additional app enables the travelling personnel to input and transmit further significant patient data, or comments. At the destination center, the specialist physician logs onto the server, receives the data in real time, and is allowed to plot/analyze them, assessing the patient’s situation, and possibly sending immediate feedback to the operators in the ambulance. The system is currently under evaluation at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of Alessandria Children Hospital, Italy. The system, by allowing real time data communication, is able to provide clear advantages from the organizational and economical viewpoint.