Lives of road accident victims often depend on how soon medical aid is made available.
Answer (Ambulance Networking System with Emergency Response), a software, promises emergency medical aid at the earliest.
Answer was launched in the city recently by the Indian Medical Association as Trauma Rescue Initiative (TRI) Trivandrum. Developed by Danish Salim, a doctor at a private hospital here, Answer aims at providing patients the right treatment within the ‘platinum minutes’ — the first few minutes of any emergency. The TRI software has three encrypted apps – for the common man, ambulances, and hospitals – and one web portal for the police networking centre.
Just dial 100
So, if one has witnessed a road accident, just dial 100. Once the police networking centre is intimated, the portal page will show the availability status of all ambulances registered with the network and all hospitals closest to the victim’s location. The ambulances are registered on the TRI app for ambulances. The networking centre zeroes in on the ambulance closest to the spot and seeks the driver’s nod for patient transfer. If it is accepted, the app will show the route to the location of the patient in red and from there to the hospital in green. The system also classifies hospitals according to availability of specialities, treatment facilities such as ICU and ventilators, and number of accident victims that can be accommodated. Hospitals can also be downgraded if they do not meet the criteria. Hospitals are required to update their total bed, ICU bed, ventilator, and superspecialty availability every six hours, thus helping the network centre decide which facility to assign the patients to.
There is a common man app too which allows people to make health distress calls. The app stores important details of the patient such as blood group and diseases. So, when a distress call is made, all health data is sent to the networking centre for further arrangements. This app will become operational next month.
So far, 98 ambulances have registered on the network; the IMA is aiming at 140. The IMA also has 15 hospitals, including five private ones, on board to provide emergency trauma care. Dr. Danish is hopeful that Answer will help save the lives of those involved in road accidents. He stresses that Answer is the solution for all emergencies not just those involving trauma.
