Lehi Tech News
App allows emergency responders to communicate with hospital in real-time
During any emergency time is of the essence. Mountain Point Medical Center, a Steward Hospital, has begun using a secured, privacy protected app to expedite care in these situations.
Mountain Point Medical Center, along with the other Steward Hospitals, Jordan Valley Medical Center, Jordan Valley Medical Center – West Valley Campus, and Davis Hospital and Medical Center now feature Twiage, an app that allows emergency responders to share patient information with hospital personnel in real-time, to expedite lifesaving care.
Twiage, Inc. is a healthcare IT company based in New York. The attention-getting name comes from a combination of the popular social media platform “Twitter” and “triage”, the commonly used medical term for prioritizing treatment.
Twiage offers emergency responders the ability to use a smartphone to share real-time patient data and send secured, privacy protected (HIPPA-compliant) photos and videos. Designed by physicians and emergency medical technicians, the app offers hospital personnel an additional method to prepare Cath labs, operating rooms, stroke teams, and hospital beds well in advance of a patient’s arrival to the ER.
“This latest form of communication is accelerating patient care in the emergency department when every second counts,” said Sara Morgan, Trauma Coordinator and EMS Liaison at Jordan Valley Medical Center. “Twiage alerts our doctors about sick patients in our community before EMS even leaves the scene, allowing us to prepare the necessary resources we need at the hospital to provide the best care possible to our patients. We are excited to have this new technology to stream real time patient alerts and updates to the hospital in matters of seconds.”
The award-winning technology also contains GPS-tracking to help hospitals plan estimated times of arrival, ultimately shaving life-saving minutes off treatment time to improve patient outcomes.
“In emergency care, speed and information saves lives,” said Brenden Hayden, Vice President of EMS, Steward Health Care System. “With Twiage, Steward’s emergency departments in Utah will be able to treat people even more quickly, delivering the highest standard of care to patients across the communities in which they live. We are grateful that our Utah EMS providers have adopted this technology to help better serve our mutual patient.”
Several municipal fire departments and private ambulance companies in the area are utilizing Twiage, including Lehi Fire, Saratoga Springs Fire, and American Fork Fire. Within just two weeks of Twiage implementation in the Steward Utah hospitals, the app has been used over 173 times, with 62 pictures and 20 EKG’s sent to the hospitals prior to the patient’s arrival at the emergency department.
