A new partnership between a technology company and an air- and land-based ambulance service is aiming to cut down response times for people in dire need of medical help.
Global Medical Response said it is integrating an emergency communications platform from New York-based RapidSOS called Unite to request and dispatch its air ambulances.
The two companies said that the process for requesting air medical support can be time consuming and laborious, requiring phone calls and manual data entry. In certain situations it can take an emergency communications center up to 10 minutes to get the call out. But with RapidSOS, a request for an air ambulance can be made digitally with a single click while also sharing important data between the center and the air crew.
RapidSOS said the request process with Unite takes less than 60 seconds.
“Our crews are ready at a moment’s notice,” said Global Medical Response chief operating officer Ted Van Horne. “This workflow is designed to get us in the air faster, with the right information, so we can reach patients sooner. And as one of the largest providers of air medical care in the U.S., making this tool available nationally has the power to positively impact communities and patients who need us.”
‘Can Save Lives’
Global Medical Response operates in all 50 U.S. states and around the world, and serves over 550,000 patients each year. It has 383 rotor-wing aircraft and 103 fixed-wing aircraft, in addition to 7,383 ground vehicles.
RapidSOS unveiled Unite last year. The company said the platform provides emergency response agencies with capabilities like multimedia streaming, mapping, language translation and transcription, backup connections to 911 callers, forecasting and analytics, and artificial intelligence-enabled automation. It also draws data from a network of 600 million connected devices in the emergency response industry.
At the time Unite was released, RapidSOS CEO Michael Martin said the technology represented the culmination of a decade of work with public safety agencies to integrate its data into the company’s system.
With Unite now being deployed by Global Medical Response, the platform has evolved from “data delivery to true operational empowerment,” company officials said.
“By integrating air medical support into the telecommunicator workflow and removing unnecessary delays, we are enabling faster, more informed decisions that can save lives,” Martin said in a statement announcing the partnership.
