Real-time telemedicine for emergency medical evacuation by air transportation

飞机上的紧急医疗服务(EMS)也被称为空中救护车，用于紧急医疗后送，如将创伤患者从事故现场运送到医院，或从战场运送到治疗中心。还考虑在商业航班上部署EMS，以避免在飞机上出现医疗紧急情况时出现代价高昂的偏差。EMS车辆仍然依靠语音通信在调度中心和船上的机组人员之间交换医疗信息。这是极其有限的；医院的医疗团队除了依靠代理通过语音传输临床信息之外别无选择，不能拥有：1-直接对患者进行视觉评估；2-直接获取患者的生命体征；3-及时反馈患者的危急演变情况。所有这些障碍都限制了当地医疗专家对可能需要立即采取救命干预措施的病人的管理能力。他们还限制了目的地设施，以便更好地准备接收病人以及船上的辅助医疗人员。 我们的目标是为现场的医疗队提供直接接触患者生命体征的途径，以及视觉评估和地理定位。这需要使用飞机上可用的电信通道进行信息传输。因此，我们将：1-调查视频和生命体征的要求；2-研究和提出保留患者视频临床价值的压缩方案；3-设计创新的方法，利用通常用于交换导航信息的可用通信通道来传输临床数据；4-将临床信息与医院电子病历中的患者历史相结合。该项目将带来有关图像采集和压缩方案的新知识，这些方案旨在保留信息的临床价值，同时通过空闲的飞机通信通道传输信息。它将改善患者护理，并为我们的工业合作伙伴提供新的商业机会。

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) on board of aircrafts, also known as air ambulance, are used for emergency medical evacuation, such as transporting trauma patients from the accident site to a hospital, or from the battlefield to a treatment center. EMS are also being considered for deployment on board of commercial flights as an attempt to avoid their costly deviation in the case of a medical emergency on board. EMS vehicles still rely on voice communications to exchange medical information between the dispatch center and the crew on board. This is extremely limiting; the medical team in the hospital has no other choice than relying on a proxy to transmit clinical information by voice and cannot have: 1- direct visual assessment of the patient;2- direct access to the patient's vital signs; 3- prompt feedback of the patient's critical evolving situation. All these obstacles limit the ability of the medical specialists on the ground to take in charge the patient who may need life saving immediate intervention. They also limit the destination facility to better prepare for receiving the patient as well as the paramedical crew on-board in their capacity to act. Our objective is to provide the medical team on the ground direct access to the patient's vital signs, along with visual assessment and geo-positioning. This requires information transfer using telecommunication channels available on board of the aircraft. Therefore, we will: 1- investigate the video and vital signs requirements; 2- study and propose compression schemes that preserve the clinical value of the patient's video; 3- design innovative methods to use the available communication channels normally used for exchanging navigation information in order to transmit clinical data; 4- and integrate the clinical information with the patient's history in the Electronic Medical Record at the hospital. This project will lead to new knowledge about image acquisition and compression schemes that aim to preserve the clinical value of the information while transferring it over vacant aircraft communication channels. It will lead to improving patient care and to providing new commercial opportunities to our industrial partners.