By Kevin McGinnis
A car crash on a rural road causes an automatic crash notification (ACN) data burst to fly from the car to a dispatcher within seconds and then to the EMS crew for review en route...shaving five to thirty minutes, or more, off the Golden Hour impact.
Severity calculations in the ACN data burst trigger automatic dispatch of helicopter and extrication response, and inform the responding medics: another twenty minutes or so off the Golden Hour impact.
A patient trapped in the wrecked car is scanned by a medic’s portable ultrasound, while data from a small, wireless multi-vital signs monitor, from the regional medical record repository, and from wearable videocams begin to stream data into data bases accessible to the hospital staff and to incoming responders.
An apartment house is engulfed in flames. Several firefighters enter to search for victims. Every firefighter is wirelessly monitored for location in the building, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing by an EMS safety officer.
A sheriff’s deputy makes a traffic stop on an isolated road at night. The driver shoots the deputy, who falls to the ground, unconscious. The car speeds away.
A police dispatcher monitoring the deputy’s vehicle dash camera sees the shooting. She calls for EMS and police response and puts out an alert to all police agencies with the car’s description and license plate number. The quick reaction saves the deputy’s life and results in a stop and arrest of the car’s driver within the hour.
Can this happen today? Just last week NPR reported on DC Fire/EMS’ ability to send robust dispatch data to responding unit computer displays, including detailed caller-reported information about the emergency and information about the location and related hazards or history. Ambulance crews across the country routinely send electronic patient data and, in some areas, patient video.
But — and this is a huge ‘but’ — none of this can happen today with the same reliability and security we demand of our voice radio systems, if it can happen at all.
In most cases, we rely on commercial wireless air cards or other modem devices. In other cases, we employ the unlicensed broadband airwaves cities use to provide public internet access. Either way, we can experience data slowdowns or entirely dropped communications when public use increases, like in times of a large local emergency. This could be disastrous in the middle of emergency patient care or other public safety mission critical applications.
Public safety needs its own broadband network and the funding to build it out nationwide. The FCC has already granted a nationwide 700 MHz license to the Public Safety Spectrum Trust (comprised of national EMS, hospital and other public safety associations), but that is not enough spectrum and it came with no money to build the system.
After several years of pitched battle with some wireless carriers who want to use the spectrum to sell their services, public safety (represented largely by the Public Safety Alliance) is on the verge of successfully acquiring the “D Block” of spectrum adjacent to its own 700 MHz bandwidth and the funding to build out the broadband network. Senate bill S.911, and bills emerging in the past week in the House and Senate, aim to do just this. They are supported by some of the most powerful folks on Capitol Hill. The Obama administration has made this one of its top priorities.
But, and another big one, the battle is not over. At a recent White House meeting on the D Block, Vice-President Biden urged us to not let up for a second, instead to put our foot to the accelerator.
If we are to have capabilities to move EMS care forward in developing its new and true potential, we must have this broadband access. It is essential that every EMS provider contact their Congressional representatives in both houses to support “D Block for public safety” legislation like S.911.
Up to the minute information on this may be found at http://www.psafirst.org/.
About the author
Kevin McGinnis is a licensed paramedic, former ambulance service chief, hospital emergency department director and state EMS director. He is communications technology advisor for the National Association of State EMS Officials, the National Association of EMTs, the National Association of EMS Physicians, the National Association of EMS Educators, and the National EMS Management Association. He chairs the US Department of Homeland Security’s SafeCom Program.