A novel mobile telemedicine system for ambulance transport. Design and evaluation.

It is generally accepted that early and specialized pre-hospital patient treatment improves outcome in terms of mortality and morbidity, in emergency cases. The focus of this paper is to present the implementation and the evaluation of an ambulance located telemedicine system for pre-hospital patient treatment The primary emphasis is on the vital sign transmission from the accident site or the moving ambulance to the consultation site, using the GSM mobile telephony network. There, the experts evaluate the patient data, decides about the treatment protocol and provide directions to the ambulance's medical staff concerning on the patient handling until the arrival to the hospital.