EMS, OLOL pioneering ‘telemedicine’ treatment

East Baton Rouge Emergency Management Services and Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center are piloting a “telemedicine” system that will link ambulances with emergency room doctors to improve treatment time. Assistant EMS Administrator Chad Guillot says video cameras and a monitoring system are being installed in an ambulance and the ER to transmit video, voice and data to doctors through the wireless network. “Time is always the issue with a stroke or heart patient,” Guillot says. “The golden hour is treating an hour within injury and, with us becoming a bigger city, it’s always more challenging to do that in.” Tucson, Ariz., was the first in the United States to get the system on a limited basis. EBR EMS plans to have the pilot system live in two weeks and expanded parishwide in the next two years. The $50,000 pilot phase will be covered by the EMS and a Homeland Security grant. The parishwide effort will cost an estimated $1 million, which will be shared by grant funds and participating hospitals. Guillot says Mayor Kip Holden, after seeing the system in Jerusalem, pushed to bring the concept to the parish.—Anna Thibodeaux