Irevive: A Pre-Hospital Database System For Emergency Medical Services

Most emergency medical service (EMS) events are documented by hand. We have implemented a new paradigm: the electronic Patient Care Record (PCR) for emergency medical field usage with a system called iRevive that functions as a mobile database application. This paper discusses a field trial of iRevive in the context of improving the design and usability of the handheld device by incorporating feedback from users. Also included is a brief overview of our nation's EMS system, emphasising the urgent need to adopt new types of information technology to link pre-hospital information with the hospital record, a description of iRevive and a discussion on barriers to implementation. iRevive is a mobile database application that is designed to facilitate the collection and management of pre-hospital data. It allows point-of-care data capture in an electronic format and is equipped with individual patient sensors to automatically capture vital sign data. Patient information from the field is wirelessly transmitted to a back end server, which uses web service standards to promote interoperability with disparate hospital information systems, various billing agencies, and a wide variety of research applications.