iRevive: a pre-hospital database system for emergency medical services

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Most emergency medical service (EMS) events are documented by hand. We have implemented a new paradigm: the electronic Patient Care Record (PCR) for emergency medical field usage with a system called iRevive that functions as a mobile database application. This paper discusses a field trial of iRevive in the context of improving the design and usability of the handheld device by incorporating feedback from users. Also included is a brief overview of our nation's EMS system, emphasising the urgent need to adopt new types of information technology to link pre-hospital information with the hospital record, a description of iRevive and a discussion on barriers to implementation. iRevive is a mobile database application that is designed to facilitate the collection and management of pre-hospital data. It allows point-of-care data capture in an electronic format and is equipped with individual patient sensors to automatically capture vital sign data. Patient information from the field is wirelessly transmitted to a back end server, which uses web service standards to promote interoperability with disparate hospital information systems, various billing agencies, and a wide variety of research applications.