[medinformatics] Teletrauma System Aids Rural Trauma Patients

[Medical Informatics News]

Staring at a computer screen, speaking into a microphone,
University Medical Center*at Tucson trauma surgeons now can
save the lives of badly injured patients hundreds of miles away. From the Arizona Daily Star:

*

Using state-of-the-art electronic video technology, Southern Arizona’s only level-one trauma center is taking its
life-saving expertise into the region’s small rural hospitals that have struggled to care for these most critical
patients.

*

“I can see the wounds, the bleeding, I can read the patient’s vital signs and reactions, and that means we can help
resuscitate and stabilize the patients - even walk a physician through a surgery, if we have to,” said Dr. Rifat
Latifi, a UMC trauma surgeon who has pioneered “teletrauma” care in Southern Arizona.

*

Only a month in operation, the teletrauma system already is credited with saving the life of a patient - an 18-month
old baby near death after a violent car crash that killed her grandmother and two other relatives.*

Part of the statewide Arizona Telemedicine Program, the local
teletrauma system is partially subsidized by the Arizona Department of Health
Services.


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