During serious or life-threatening car accidents, a few precious minutes are invariably lost everytime due to the delay in assessing the seriousness of the injuries and coordinating medical flight dispatch. However, this could soon be a thing of the past.
The Japanese auto giants, Honda Motor Company and Toyota Motor Corporation, have come together in coordination with Japan Mayday Company to design a unique automatic medical flight dispatch system. The system which is currently being trialed real-time can change the way emergency services are handled around the globe, especially in the developed world where technology is not an issue.
The Mechanism of Automatic Medical Flight Dispatch
Everytime there is a serious car accident on the road, the vehicle automatically transmits a signal to a centralized data, which estimates the seriousness of the accident using “probability estimation algorithm” through a data of 2.8 million accidents.
The algorithm has been developed by Nippon Medical School and Nihon University. The info is then relayed to Japan Mayday, which in turn informs the nearest medical facility that hosts a chopper. The entire process takes place swiftly and within a matter of few minutes the medical flight gets on its way to the accident site.
Evaluating the Necessity of Medical Flight
This is an important factor to be considered before dispatching a medical flight, mainly due to cost reasons. A medical flight can be quite expensive compared to ground ambulance, which the US citizens are well aware of. However, the medical flight dispatch system accounts for this concern.
The system is triggered only in such accidents where airbags are deployed. It even relays information such as seatbelt use along with the location of the accident. Currently, 9 Japanese hospitals are involved in the trial. Japan Mayday has been functional since the year 2000; however, it is only now that it is including medical flight services.
