Bluetooth Used By Hospitals: To Save Lives, Not For Marketing

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Written on Friday, October 03, 2008

I came across these great news today, about the Christian Hospital Northeast, in St. Louis, that has equipped its entire ambulance fleet with Bluetooth. The idea is that your diagnostic EKG results can beat you to the hospital, allowing your doctors to prepare for you, before you even get there. This allows the hospital to get most patients treated within 90 minutes, which proves how much the technology can help, when used right.

In an emergency such as a heart attack, minutes and seconds count dramatically. And with Bluetooth technology being used to transmit critical data like EKG readouts from anywhere a patient has fallen ill- such as an accident scene- physicians and cardiologists can get the jump on critical information needed to save lives. “Our ambulances are actually a Wi-Fi cafe hot spot,” says Wesley Boles, chief of emergency medical services at Christian Hospital.

And Christian Hospital has the data to back up their claim that this technology is indeed a tremendously good time saving tool. Of the 28 patients taken by ambulance to the hospital’s cardiac cath lab in the past six months, 24 were treated in less than 90 minutes.

I realize a lot (most?) Health Care Sector problems are much more important problems than just getting the patients' data processed quicker, but it's definitely a good start, and you can't just dismiss something that helps save lives, whatever it is!

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