System a success in tsunami aid effort
A Brisbane software company has attracted worldwide attention for a revolutionary mobile phone based acute care rapid deployment system used to treat ill and wounded people in remote areas.
The LifeMEDIC system was developed by Biocenturion Systems Pty Ltd in 2004. The system allows doctors and other health professionals to use mobile phones to send pictures, vital signs and x-rays of the ill and injured via satellite or mobile phone to medical specialists thousands of kilometres away.
In addition to camera phones, laptop computers, digital cameras and regular mobile phones are used to send text, audio and photographic messages and data to the central database.
LifeMEDIC was first deployed overseas during the Asian tsunami crisis by a Queensland Health medical team on assignment in Aceh, Indonesia in January.
Team Foxtrot was made up of 24 Queensland Health doctors, nurses, environmental health officers, paramedics and fire and rescue personnel.
During the Aceh emergency, the information from doctors on the ground was encrypted and sent to the LifeMEDIC servers in Queensland Health’s Disaster Coordination Centre in Brisbane. There, 10 specialist doctors could give their opinions and advice on the spot and seek further opinions from a network of specialists throughout the Queensland Health Network.
Stanthorpe-born Tom Rosser (pictured right), a data architect in the team which designed the system, says LifeMEDIC was inspired by a desire to develop software to use mobile phones for the general public to be able to capture and monitor vital signs such as heart rate, pulse and lung sounds on their phone wherever they were.
“With the support of Queensland Health we then gathered together more than 100 doctors from five hospitals around Queensland and started to develop modules they needed for home care and bedside medicine in acute care wards.”
The trial with Queensland Health continued for 18 months and focussed on the system’s potential as an add-on to the existing medical access procedures in remote areas of Queensland.
But that focus shifted dramatically in the wake of the Asian tsunami.
“We then saw the opportunity to donate the software because we knew the hospitals there didn’t have the network installed to manage the huge volume of patients coming in for treatment.
“It was an ideal opportunity to use the mobile phone networks that are very well advanced in Asian countries as no regular fixed-line phone services operate in many areas.”
Austrade showcased LifeMEDIC at Medica, the international medical conference in Dusseldorf in November 2004 after which 14 different governments and 400 hospitals showed an interest in the system.
And the United Nations is interested in utilising the LifeMEDIC system, using photographs from mobile phones and the LifeMEDIC database to identify and keep track of children in the disaster zones.
After the Queensland team returned from Indonesia, the LifeMEDIC system remained there to be used by other emergency medical teams, including a group sent to Aceh by Victoria’s Department of Health and by Indonesian doctors.
The Queensland Government is supporting LifeMEDIC through the Queensland Government Trade and Investment Office (QGTIO) in London, where QGTIO Europe and LifeMEDIC are currently in the process of drafting a plan of action in the UK and Europe.
QGTIO Europe also will work with LifeMEDIC to help find a pilot hospital for its cutting edge product in London. The system’s export potential is being explored through the Department of the Premier and Cabinet’s Trade Division in Brisbane.
Last reviewed 19 January 2006