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A Multifunctional Telemedicine System for Pre-hospital Emergency Medical Services

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Automation, Communication and Cybernetics in Science and Engineering 2013/2014

Abstract

The paper presents the design and architecture of a multifunctional telemedicine system for real-time teleconsultation in pre-hospital emergency medical services (EMS). The application of telemedicine has shown to improve patient treatment quality and efficiency in various settings. Still, its use by pre-hospital EMS is lacking. Current technical, normative standards do not provide a sufficient framework in order to design a multifunctional telemedicine system for teleconsultation in pre-hospital EMS. Starting with a use-case driven requirements analysis, a telemedicine system usable in this setting is designed, realized and currently in use for evaluation by selected German EMS departments. This system uses commercial off-the-shelf medical devices, custom devices for communication and an individual system architecture, integrating the heterogeneous components as required by the defined use-cases.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by NRW/EU Ziel 2-Program (EFRE) 2007–2013, the RWTH Aachen University, University Hospital Aachen, Philips HealthCare, 3M, and P3 communications.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IMA/ZLW & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Dennewartstr. 27, 52068, Aachen, Germany

    Sebastian Thelen, Marie-Thérèse Schneiders, Daniel Schilberg & Sabina Jeschke

Authors
  1. Sebastian Thelen
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  2. Marie-Thérèse Schneiders
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  3. Daniel Schilberg
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  4. Sabina Jeschke
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian Thelen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. IMA/ZLW & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Sabina Jeschke

  2. IMA/ZLW & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Ingrid Isenhardt

  3. IMA/ZLW & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Frank Hees

  4. IMA/ZLW & IfU, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Klaus Henning

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Thelen, S., Schneiders, MT., Schilberg, D., Jeschke, S. (2014). A Multifunctional Telemedicine System for Pre-hospital Emergency Medical Services. In: Jeschke, S., Isenhardt, I., Hees, F., Henning, K. (eds) Automation, Communication and Cybernetics in Science and Engineering 2013/2014. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08816-7_14

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