There are many startups out there with some very bright ideas behind them. However, what MedAssist.online offers cannot only save money but also lives as well.
Gaining access to high-quality medical care can be difficult at the best of times but when you’re far out to sea it can be even more problematic. Fortunately, Netherlands-based MedAssist.online has developed a handy digital tool named Skills App that could literally prove to be a lifesaver during a maritime medical emergency.
Fully compliant with the medical training provisions of the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCWs), the app, says founder and managing director Dr Walther Boon, grew out of requests for a suitable mobile app when teaching medical care courses to ships officers at Rotterdam-based maritime training company ECMT. “We started looking and it turned out [there wasn’t one], so that’s basically when we got the idea to start a digital venture,” he says.
“All the things that are mandatory that you get in the training, we put in the app,” he continues, explaining that Skills App has thus been developed to provide ships officers with clear step-by-step instructions on how to perform 18 essential medical procedures, ranging from stitching wounds and giving injections to setting up an intravenous (IV) line.
As well as boosting the user’s medical competence, the app also helps bolster their confidence when performing potentially nerve-racking treatments and procedures, something that can prove critical in an emergency. “We’re not focussing on [medical] professionals. We are focussing on the people on ships and helping them to do things better,” Boon says. As such, Skills App was designed from the outset to be easily understood and followed in both calm and high-stress situations to help “provide the best medical care possible” when a fully qualified doctor is not on hand or contactable.
But while a whole range of medical emergencies can happen at any time onboard a vessel, heart problems, Boon reveals, are actually the single most common medical issue faced by mariners. Thus, MedAssist.online has also developed Heart App, another digital tool that works in conjunction with a pocket-sized piece of peripheral equipment to provide a hospital-quality 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) via a tablet or smart phone. The resulting ECG can then be emailed via the company’s own secure server as a PDF for remote interpretation by medical professionals anywhere in the world.
“When someone has a severe heart attack, you know you have a problem [and] you don’t need any diagnostic [equipment]. The thing is, in many cases it’s not that clear cut. You have a lot of grey area,” Boon explains. This similarly layperson-focussed product, though, can make that grey area much smaller by helping a doctor on shore make decisions based on objective facts rather than just verbal descriptions relayed over the radio.
While Heart App does require “a little amount” of internet connectivity, Skills App has nonetheless been designed for full functionality offline. That said, both have been developed for ease-of-use on mobile devices in highly demanding maritime environments. Furthermore, by enabling better on-the-spot treatment and more informed diagnoses, they can also greatly reduce costs borne of unnecessary course deviations and/or evacuations that might otherwise occur without them. At the same time, they also help ensure medical compliance is observed.
Moreover, they now look set to be joined shortly on the company’s roster by a third product. Called Live App, this digital tool uses two-way augmented reality (TWAR) technology to “virtually bring the doctor aboard”. It does this by merging a live video feed from the onboard caregiver with another from an onshore doctor that, using a shared perspective, results in a mutually augmented screen-based vision via which both parties can interact as though they were in the same room.
Or, in other words, when the caregiver directs their camera at the patient they are able to see the hands of the doctor on their screen quite literally pointing out what they need to do next. Indeed, while the system is still undergoing field-testing, Boon reports that the results so far have proved highly promising, with the doctors in question able to instruct the caregivers in much the same way as they would in a conventional classroom-based set-up.
Likewise designed for use on a mobile device and without any need for special glasses or similar kit, Live App does, perhaps unsurprisingly, require an active internet connection. However, for the past two years MedAssist.online has been working with the European Space Agency to ensure that the system can work over a standard satellite connection rather than being limited to just the fastest and strongest currently available.
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