What is Medical Data Network

Patients in critical condition need Physician’s supervision while they are in transit to the hospital. If the ambulance is linked to the emergency room, the physician can monitor patient’s vital signs and issue instructions to the paramedics for stabilizing the patient. When a disaster strikes, scores of people are transferred to the hospital in ambulances. During an emergency situation, the number of patients in critical condition reaches overwhelming proportions. In this chapter, we discuss the state of the art in transferring emergency medical data from the disaster site or ambulance to the hospital and outline some case studies. We present a scheme called MEDTOC (Medical Data Transmission Over Cellular Network) for transferring in-ambulance multiple patients’ data to the hospital by UMTS. This system enables the transfer of vital signs to the hospital in reduced and packed format using limited bandwidth wireless network. Medical data can be transmitted over 3G cellular network using various modes and quality of service parameters available in UMTS. This could help the physicians in monitoring several patients who are either in transit or at a triage unit on a disaster site. Results of the application of data reduction algorithm over CAN packets and feasibility studies in transfer of data over UMTS are presented and discussed.