Consumer Apps in EMS

The tools used in EMS are constantly changing, but one of the most powerful devices available to nearly every ambulance is the smartphone. However, the vast majority of these devices are owned personally by the crew assigned to any rig. While this may be acceptable to the employee who retains control over the personalization of their own device, it can lead to many potential problems for the organization. The advantage for the agency, however, is not having to purchase or support these devices. A trade that many services are apparently more than willing to take as my own non-scientific Twitter poll failed to discover any services that specifically ban the possession of personal phones while on duty. What did surprise me was that only 15% of respondents stated specific policies were already in place regarding their use.

 

 

Over the last few years, the number of medics with personal smartphones has only increased. This is due, at least in part, to an evolving workforce integrating the millennial generation that never knew a world without personal communication devices. Over those same years there have been several good articles that describe the potential of using them at work including “10 Apps Every Paramedic Should Have” or “EMS Apps Make Life Easier“. Many of these apps are focused on patient interactions such as drug identification or calculations, language translators, or a digital version of your protocols. Some, like the Northwest MedStar Alert app, are actually designed for operational improvement at the system level. This particular app allows a GPS coordinate from the phone to be sent directly to the flight communications center and even sets up a secure dialog between responders and hospital staff. (One of the best features to that app may be having an accurate ETA for the helicopter!)

Other authors are more excited about the near future, such as in “How EMS will benefit from smartphones and connected vehicles“. There are multiple studies currently going on regarding the potential of  bringing a virtual physician presence to the scene in order to evaluate a patient. The article “Mobile Devices Speed and Streamline Pre-hospital Care” identifies one of these telemedicine projects targeting stroke. The evolving mobile eco-system has also given birth to some new private businesses. Medlert is just one example of an app built specifically to optimize patient transport schedules using smartphones.  As EMS agencies become increasingly comfortable with leveraging more cloud-based services, there will be more development in the market.

Use of any of these apps (and the personal devices they depend upon) comes with certain caveats and risks. Many apps commonly state disclaimers about their use, particularly in emergency services, so it is worth reading the fine print.

 

 

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, 74% of adults use a smartphone for directions based on location. Another Twitter poll that I’ve conducted shows that using a smartphone app is fairly common for “ambulance drivers” as well. But how good are these routes when we are in an ambulance, especially one that is driving “emergency traffic”? If an agency can provide its own web service based on road data that it controls, the routing can be very good. With MARVLIS Impedance Monitor, an agency’s data can be automatically modified to reflect the travel times common to a fleet during specific timeframes and on certain days and for different seasons learned from actual emergency traffic experience.

There is less control when a commercial routing service is used through a consumer app. Google Maps has an option to show real-time traffic and Waze boasts being the world’s largest community-based traffic and navigation app where drivers share real-time traffic and road information. Waze is interesting in that it was created as a social navigation tool for passenger cars. So, if you plan to use it on an ambulance trip, it would be best not to “share your route” with friends or other contacts. For that, there is a “Go Invisible” option you must choose in order to keep any potential identifying data private.

Is simply “outsmarting traffic” really what we need to be doing, though? Apps like Waze are great to help you avoid the congestion created by an accident that is tying up traffic. But when the traffic accident IS your destination, avoiding it is not a recommended route for you to take. For most vehicles, commercial routing and real-time traffic is hugely valuable. But for an ambulance, not so much. Routing normal cars and trucks is relatively simple because there is a set of rules they must abide by in motion that can be easily modeled. Emergency vehicles, including ambulances or fire apparatus, often break those rules by traveling along the road shoulder or even crossing a median into the oncoming lane of travel. The normal direction of one-way streets can also be ignored at times.  No regular commercial app takes these routing options into account. It requires you to track your own vehicles and learn patterns from those operations only. A final consideration is how you may, inadvertently, influence the decision-making on a social routing app for others by including your behavior with all of the other vehicles on the roadway.

There is no question that you will be using, or allowing the use of, smartphones for a wide variety of purposes. What you need to do is be sure your staff are using the right apps for the right applications. We often like to think we are different, and in many ways we are very different indeed from most “consumers.”

We are interested in keeping this conversation going with your experience and ask that you share what apps have you found to be useful on the ambulance, or cautions about them, in the comment section below.

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