Emergency room and trauma physicians at McLaren Macomb Hospital can now see video of a patient at the site of an emergency in real time so that they can begin to assess the patient before he or she arrives at the hospital.
“Given our service area and the distance our ambulances must travel with patients, some perhaps time-critical, this program will allow the emergency room staff to be more prepared upon the patients’ arrival,” says Jeff White, chief of emergency medical services for Richmond Lenox EMS, the ambulance authority that offers the video service. “When minutes hang in the balance, any time saved is absolutely to our patients’ advantage.”
White says videos are captured on agency-owned phones and are transmitted only to the McLaren Macomb emergency center and not stored on the phone to ensure patient privacy.
He says paramedics will first notify the patient or guardian that they will be videotaped, and describe the purpose and the destination. Only certain injuries and medical conditions will be captured. The video will only show the mechanisms of the injury or condition.
White says there is no cost to either Richmond Lenox EMS or McLaren Macomb for the program.
Richmond Lenox Emergency Medical Services serves northern Macomb County and St. Clair County. McLaren Macomb is a 288-bed hospital in Mount Clemens.
