NOAH - A mobile emergency care system

Experiencing communication problems in our emergency services, we developed an innovative communication network and system (NOAH, which stands for Not fall-Organisations-und Arbeitshilfe, or Emergency-Organisation Active Aide System). In contrast with the currently established emergency services comm unication in Germany by radio wave, data is transferred from the scene in t he form of an electronic record on a notepad-computer by means of the wirel ess data communication network Modacom (Mobile Data Communication), which i s provided by German Telekom. It is received at the dispatch-centre in ment ioned format and transferred to the admitting hospital without any loss of data. In a prospective study, the technical and conceptual suitability of this sy stem was investigated. It was shown that an admitting hospital was informed more than 20 minutes in advance about the admittance of a patient. To assu re the quality of transferred data, information was ranked by different cri teria. This further demonstrated that much more precise information about a patient's condition was already available upon admittance to the hospital.