Watching to Save Lives

Abstract

Introduction:

As Israel's National Emergency Medical Services (EMS) provider, Magen David Adom (MDA) is constantly looking for ways to improve the response to mass casualty incidents (MCIs). Previous research has shown that in an MCI situation, the demand for resources is disproportionate to the available resources, thus creating a dilemma of how to triage and treat the patients, as well as how to best prioritize and treat the critical patients.

Aim:

Smartwatches have become an integral part of society. MDA constantly looks for ways to integrate new technologies into their emergency response protocols. Smartwatches were used in this experiment to determine if in an MCI, relaying live information to the dispatch center would improve the time it takes for emergency crews to effectively treat and transport critical patients.

Methods:

A drill and scenario were designed to simulate an MCI in which there were 3 severe, 2 moderate, and 5 lightly wounded patients. There were then different colored smartwatches placed on each victim. The watches transmitted real-time blood pressure, pulse, and oxygen saturation readings to the dispatch center. The live information was transferred directly to responding teams. A second drill was conducted using the same scenario, same number of patients, but without watches to examine the differences in response times.

Results:

MDA found that the use of smartwatches directly improved the times (by 3.27 minutes) in which emergency teams were able to reach the most severely wounded patients and evacuate them to the hospital in a timely manner.

Discussion:

Using smartwatches to transmit live information to the dispatch center allowed for effective treatment and transport of patients in an MCI. Use of such information allows the dispatch center to direct teams to provide accurate treatment to the patients according to their needs.