NOAH. A mobile emergency care system. Notfall-Organisations- und Arbeitshilfe

Experiencing communication problems in our emergency services, we developed an innovative communication network and system (NOAH, which stands for Notfall-Organisations- und Arbeitshilfe, or Emergency-Organisation Active Aide System). In contrast with the currently established emergency services communication in Germany by radio wave, data is transferred from the scene in the form of an electronic record on a notepad-computer by means of the wireless data communication network Modacom (Mobile Data Communication), which is provided by German Telekom. It is received at the dispatch-centre in mentioned format and transferred to the admitting hospital without any loss of data. In a prospective study, the technical and conceptual suitability of this system was investigated. It was shown that an admitting hospital was informed more than 20 minutes in advance about the admittance of a patient. To assure the quality of transferred data, information was ranked by different criteria. This further demonstrated that much more precise information about a patient's condition was already available upon admittance to the hospital.