How would you help someone lying by the side of the road
In America when someone gets in an accident, or gets hurt, the first action most people take is to dial 911. Calling 911 gets an ambulance on the scene for rescue within minutes.
In resource-limited or developing nations such as Haiti, India and many African and South American countries, calling 911 is not always a viable option. Why is this the case in low and middle income countries? This is mostly because the telecommunications infrastructure required for dispatching first responders is not sufficiently established and, without such technology, people or patients with medical emergencies cannot alert trained first responders when medical emergencies occur.
You may ask how does this affect me? Have you ever gone on vacation to a pretty and exotic location like Fiji, Mexico or Africa, and decide to go hiking in the woods or jungle where there are no hospitals around for many miles? What would happen if you slipped and broke your leg or ankle or got a virus like malaria? Imagine you are driving through a non-paved roadway in Haiti. You’ve been driving and it’s nighttime, and all of the sudden you slide off the road. Accidents may occur anywhere and at any moment. When these unfortunate events happen, it would be comforting to know that there is an emergency system in place which would work in remote locations.
The need for improving prehospital emergency care systems is enormous. By making these improvements, it will drastically reduce premature death and disability by speeding up delays in transportation to hospitals.
You may ask how can technology be used to change peoples lives in countries where getting a smartphone is a luxury? Trek Medics International , an international humanitarian organization, has been working on leveraging SMS technology for Emergency Medical Services (EMS) purposes for past three and half years. Trek Medics has been developing, and is now in the stages of field testing a software which will undoubtedly help solve a very important and common problem in most developing countries. This software is called BEACON.
Mobile Phones are used around the world. As a Solution, Trek Medics International, in collaboration with Vision Point Systems, has developed the BEACON software to provide dispatching systems for communities that do not have access to reliable emergency transport and communications, and similarly lack the funding to acquire them. In short, BEACON improves access to trained emergency medical care and transport through SMS that are relayed from the scene of an emergency to the nearest available first responders. This revolutionary software is modeled after dispatching technologies used in developed countries, but has been modified to make sure it is easy enough to use by people who live in areas with limited resources and educational backgrounds.
The software functions without an Internet connection, and provides an innovative and cost effective platform for emergency medical care across a wide range of resource-limited settings. We believe that the minimal human, physical and financial resources required by BEACON makes effective emergency medical system development feasible wherever mobile phones are used. We are currently seeking partners to expand field-testing and development.
First responders know where to go because of reliable telecommunications. With global mobile phone use now over 80%, the tools needed to develop innovative and dynamic emergency dispatching solutions are tremendous. Our first step in this direction is Beacon, an SMS-based dispatching software designed specifically for communities where consistent ambulance response is not available. Beacon addresses the response gap by allowing community paramedics to quickly locate, treat, and transport emergency victims from the scene to the hospital.
A terrible motor vehicle collision occurs (Emergency Event)
A witness sends an SMS to a Beacon server (Notification)
The server relays the SMS to the nearest trained responders (Response)
Trained responders locate the patient(s) to provide triage and basic medical care(Care On-Scene)
Responders provide safe emergency transport to hospitals, with advance notification (Transport)
Patients are transferred to a receiving facility (Definitive Care)
A major obstacle for emergency dispatching systems in impoverished communities is cost: conventional 911 systems are extraordinarily expensive. At the same time, the basic components of such a system - like mobile phones, transport vehicles, and Good Samaritans willing to help – are readily available. Despite this fact, victims with life-threatening injuries and illness still find themselves without a reliable way to call for help whenever they need it.Until now.
Beacon allows patients with acute medical conditions to be directly connected to trained emergency responders using basic SMS, anywhere there’s a mobile phone signal, and has been designed specifically for communities that cannot afford conventional 911 dispatching services.
What Are The Challenges?
Some of the obstacles to building and improving emergency medical care systems (prehospital transport) in developing worlds include: the absence of structural models, poor condition of roads and high fuel costs, lack of effective responder training and extreme resource constraints in the face of a never ending demand for services. These countries and areas need money to train people and to further test and tweak products in the field such as BEACON. Raising capital or funding is always going to be a challenge for a non profit organization.
Since Trek Medics is a 501(c)(3)-registered, non-profit, humanitarian organization they are in the first phase of testing in the field. Their pilot country of testing is in Haiti. Trek Medics is currently running a campaign to raise awareness by raising donations, with goal of $75,000 to further implement BEACON and to test it out in different communities around the globe.
Small Gestures can save lives