Baton Rouge Deploys Telemedicine Program To Link Ambulances, ED

[CAL/AAEM News Service]

Baton Rouge Deploys Telemedicine Program To Link Ambulances,
ED

 

Source:  iHealthBeat (http://www.ihealthbeat.org)

Date:  March 13, 2009

 

 

Baton Rouge, La., has begun to implement a telemedicine
program to allow emergency department doctors to begin treating patients as
they are being transported by ambulance to the ED, the Baton Rouge Advocate
reports.

The program, called BR Med-Connect, is currently operational
only between Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center and one of its
ambulances. Officials expect to expand the technology to more ambulances at the
hospital and eventually to all seven major area hospitals receiving funds from the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Officials are testing the program at Our Lady of the Lake
because the hospital already uses a telemedicine system to monitor patients in
intensive care units.

Doctors using the system can see and communicate with patients
in the ambulance, as well as monitor data from diagnostic machines. 

The program uses the same wireless network the city-parish's
police are using for a new surveillance system. 

Baton Rouge's program, thought to be the second of its kind
in the U.S., was funded through the city-parish's Emergency Medical Services
budget (Dyer, Baton Rouge Advocate, 3/13). 

For more information, please visit:

http://www.ihealthbeat.org/Articles/2009/3/13/Baton-Rouge-Deploys-Telemedicine-Program-To-Link-Ambulances-ED.aspx



Abid Mogannam &
Brian Potts MD, MBA
Managing Editors, CAL/AAEM News Service
University of California, Irvine

The CAL/AAEM Archives are available at: http://maillists.uci.edu/mailman/public/calaaem/

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