COMERGENCY

Cooperative mobile medical services for next-generation emergency response

In many places, emergency medical services in Germany are already reaching their limits. Due to steadily rising case numbers, a severe shortage of skilled personnel, and a high number of false alarms or non-emergency calls, the mandated response and deployment times can barely be met anymore. Especially in rural areas with long distances between emergency stations and incident sites, the current problems pose enormous challenges for first responders.

The main goal of the COMERGENCY project is to relieve the burden on emergency services through a mobile medical service infrastructure, provide targeted medical care, and improve mobile transport systems. The innovative core of the project is the collection, transmission, and evaluation of the accident victim’s vital signs before professional emergency responders arrive at the scene. (cars, etc.) This will make it possible for the first time to integrate smart devices (e.g., smartwatches, car sensors) into the emergency response chain. In the event of an emergency call, the dispatcher at the emergency operations center can better assess the accident situation (e.g., number of injured persons and severity of injuries), select the appropriate emergency resources, and provide targeted assistance to accident victims through assistance functions. In addition, new network technologies such as smartphone ad-hoc networks and Vehicle-to-X communication are to be utilized to overcome the limitations of network availability in rural areas. These innovative technological concepts and methods will fundamentally transform emergency services and medical transport systems in the near future.