MIME: pre-hospital technology for managing information in medical emergencies

MIME (Managing Information in Medical Emergencies) is a technology designed to support volunteer rural Community First Responders when managing patients. It was developed as a partnership between clinicians, computing scientists and a physiologist. Managing pre-hospital emergencies in rural areas can be very stressful with many challenges to overcome whilst waiting for professional support. The MIME system employs lightweight wireless sensors streaming data (heart and respiratory rate, and blood oxygen saturation) to a tablet computer. A user interface was developed to present these data on-screen in a simple way and to facilitate the quick digital capture of First Responder actions and observations. MIME also uses Natural Language Generation, which interrogated sensor data, user-inputted actions and observations to automatically generate an easily understandable handover report. This paper describes the MIME system, then focuses on our collaboration between academia and the Scottish Ambulance Service and finally on the spin-out of a commercial enterprise. We illustrate the challenges encountered during our research and development, and describe the collaborations that helped us to deliver success. We also discuss the Knowledge Exchange sub-context to our research activities, which coincided with the early development of research capacity and governance processes within the Scottish Ambulance Service.

This abstract was presented at the Innovative Solutions in Remote Healthcare - 'Rethinking Remote' conference, 23-24 May 2016, Inverness, Scotland.