Telemedicine for Trauma and Emergency Management: an Overview

Abstract

Purpose of Review This review focuses on the evolution of telemedicine programs on both national and international levels as it pertains to trauma and emergency medical care. Recent Findings Advances in telemedicine have been shaped by increasing demands for meeting global health needs, as well as market-driven forces. Trauma and emergency medicine face significant barriers with regard to accessibility of care, expertise, and technology. Telemedicine serves to bridge these gaps on both a global and locoregional scale, making available the highest level of expertise and care to the most remote settings. Telehealth has served to advance patient care, surgical education, and inter-institutional collaboration through the use of modern technology. Summary This review article highlights the evolution of telemedicine in trauma and emergency management and discusses recent examples and advances in technology and applications that can be used by a wide audience of health care providers to meet the needs of patients requiring trauma and emergency medical care.

Prehospital Telemedical Emergency Management of Severely Injured Trauma Patients

“…less prehospital surrogates of injury severity, no clear screening for symptoms, high prehospital mortality and the complexity of damage control resuscitation approaches). Our study updates previous reviews 28,39,[48][49][50] to provide a focused understanding of the telemedical intervention in prehospital trauma care.…”

“…References of reviews were included as well. 28,39,40,48,49 Initial screening of the identified articles was based on their abstracts and headlines. The references to the relevant literature were searched by hand for matching articles (reference tracking).…”

“…Telemedicine applications connect patients directly to health care providers and employ asynchronous (store and forward), synchronous (real time) or a combination of both. 28 With the increased use of ICT in healthcare, there has been a great emphasis on telemedicine because it can extend the services of providers to remote locations and capitalize on the availability of subject matter authorities and surmount the barrier of proximity. Due to variation of telemedicine service reimbursement, privacy apprehensions, questions concerning the economic viability, logistics and absence of medical evidence, the acceptability of telehealth into routine care is still poor.…”

“…Five previous literature reviews focused on telemedical applications in prehospital setting including stroke, AMI and other emergency entities. 28,39,[48][49][50] The main findings of these reviews for prehospital trauma referred to very few conclusive studies which assessed implementation status and technical feasibility of telemedicine systems in ambulances. A systematic review analysed 23 studies and suggested three major domains of research in prehospital telemedicine: General care, stroke care, and STEMI Care.…”

Opportunities and Challenges for Implementing Neurotrauma Prevention Program: A Practical Perspective for Developing Countries

“…[22][23][24] Electronic and communication revolution has gifted us remote and Internet-based systems in telehealth to bridge site of trauma through prehospital care for first responders to dedicated care centers allowing neurosurgical expert care earlier, outside the scope of primary and secondary health care levels even in LMICs. 25 Thus, telemedicine has helped minimize constraints of "distance" and "terrain" by connecting victims of neurotrauma with "virtual" specialists in realtime access of resources existing in a tertiary care referral center. 26…”