Method and apparatus for reporting emergency incidents

#This invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for allowing a trained emergency service provider to report emergency incidents and, more specifically, a method and apparatus for allowing an emergency service provider to electronically collect and record information regarding an emergency incident and generate a meaningful report of such data.

#Emergency care is commonly delivered to a patient at the scene of an incident by trained emergency service providers such as paramedics, police officers, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), etc. These providers work within a community-based Emergency Medical System (EMS) under the supervision of a medical director who establishes operating protocols, oversees training, and monitors the system's effectiveness. System effectiveness is assessed primarily by evaluating patient outcomes, often through secondary measures that are closely associated with long-term survival such as response time, protocol adherence, and time to delivery of effective therapy. Typically, such information is recorded manually by the emergency service provider in a paper run report including a patient information portion for recording personal patient data, a narrative portion for recording the emergency service provider's clinical narrative, and an event log portion for recording each of the treatment events that take place during the incident and their associated times of occurrence. Consequently, the report captures the time interval for the EMS to respond to the call for help, the patient's presenting signs and symptoms, the delay until therapy is applied, etc. The run report can then be later used to produce statistical summaries of overall EMS response characteristics. One example of a statistical analysis report based on a run report is the Utstein Style report for measuring response effectiveness in cases where the patient has suffered cardiac arrest.

#In order to generate incident run reports and statistical summaries such as the ones specified by the Utstein Style, raw event data must reliably collected, coded, and entered into a database. Often, the sources of raw event data are widely dispersed. Dispatch event information is provided by a Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, while vital signs and therapeutic information events are found in medical devices used on-scene during patient treatment. Emergency service provider narratives are often written into run reports produced after the incident is concluded. It is difficult for any EMS system to collate these disparate pieces of information into a single database. Often the sequence of events and their exact times can only be approximated from the records. The event log recorded in the run report can be especially inaccurate, since it is often compiled after-the-fact, perhaps days later, from memory and written notes. Efforts to introduce electronic versions of paper run reports for on-scene event capture have not been successful because the equipment is bulky and expensive, its use interferes with patient care, and the menu-driven database interface fails to capture the full range of essential events needed. A particular failing is that the accurate event times are not recorded along with the events themselves, making calculation of response intervals inaccurate.

#The foregoing aspects and many of the attendant advantages of this invention will become more readily appreciated as the same becomes better understood by reference to the following detailed description, when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

#FIG. 1 is an isometric view of a hand-held computer that is installed with an event reporting program formed in accordance with the present invention to record and report an emergency incident;

#FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram of the several components of the hand-held computer shown in FIG. 1, that are used to implement the event reporting program and record and report emergency incidents in accordance with the present invention;

#FIG. 1 illustrates a hand-held computer 20 used to record and report emergency incidents in accordance with the present invention. More specifically, the hand-held computer 20 shown in FIG. 1 is installed with an event reporting program 48 formed in accordance with the present invention to electronically record and report emergency incidents. The hand-held computer 20 comprises a touch screen display 32 for displaying the windows produced by the event recording program 48 of the present invention to prompt an emergency service provider to record events and related information that occur during an emergency incident. In order to record information and events, the emergency service provider selects options provided by the displayed windows using a touch screen pen 22. In addition, the emergency service provider may record information and events using a keyboard 30. In yet other embodiments of the present invention, the hand-held computer 20 includes a speaker/microphone 24 and appropriate voice recognition software for recognizing voice commands and recording the voice input of events and information. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that such voice recognition software is readily available off-the-shelf and can be installed on the hand-held computer in addition to the event reporting program 48. Further, the hand-held computer 20 may be equipped with a high quality digital data recorder and a noise canceling microphone in order to allow for better usage of the event reporting program in typically noisy and turbulent EMS field situations. Consequently, the emergency service provider can control the event reporting program 48 and record events and related information merely by speaking, rather than using a more traditional user input device such as a mouse, keypad, or touch screen/pen, etc. As a result, the emergency service provider has the free use of his or her hands to treat the patient at all times and need not interrupt treatment to operate the event reporting program 48.

#Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that although a hand-held computer 20 is depicted in FIG. 1, the event reporting software program 48 of the present invention can be installed and implemented on any type of portable data entry system, including but not limited to, a laptop computer, a personal device assistant, or even a medical electronic device such as a defibrillator. In addition, the portable data entry system may implement any type of user input device such as a mouse, keypad, touch screen, microphone, wireless headset, etc. to input events and related incident information. In yet other embodiments, the event reporting program 48 may be installed on a more stationary computer system, such as a personal computer or workstation.

#FIG. 2 depicts several of the key components of the hand-held computer 20. It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the hand-held computer 20 includes many more components than those shown in FIG. 2. However, a disclosure of an actual embodiment for practicing the present invention does not require that all of these generally conventional components be shown. The hand-held computer 20 includes a processing unit 34 coupled to the touch screen display 32 and a memory 44. The memory 44 comprises a conventional disc, read-only memory, and a random access memory for storing the event report program 48 of the present invention, as well as a set of patient records 46 and a set of master tables 50. The set of patient records 46 consist of a record 46 for each patient treated during an emergency incident. Each patient record 46 includes all of the events and related information recorded by the emergency service provider, including but not limited to personal and background information for the patient, a clinical narrative of the incident, and each event recorded during the incident. The master tables 50, on the other hand, store patient independent information, such as address books, drug guidelines and other reference materials commonly used by emergency service providers in treatment of patients and made available by the event reporting program 48 as described in more detail below. In addition, the master tables 50 store various menus from which the emergency service provider may select predefined events and other information for recordation during the incident. Consequently, the emergency service provider need not manually input each event as it occurs.