Baton Rouge Uses AirLink for In-Vehicle Connectivity

Located in Southeastern Louisiana, the East Baton Rouge Parish EMS is responsible for coordinating the dispatch, movement, and communications of ambulances, emergency support vehicles, and mobile command posts within the parish.

Challenges

The ability to both pull and push data from dispatch and medical facilities while on the road is critical for EMTs to more efficiently complete their duties, such as finding call locations, prepping medical staff for arriving patients, and logging activity reports. East Baton Rouge Parish EMS also wanted to collect and store as much data as possible in order to make sound, long-term business decisions. The organization began to explore mobile connectivity to solve its data access issue, provide the structure for automatic vehicle location (AVL), and benefit other public service agencies in need of the same functionality.

Solution

With the assistance of USAT Corporation, a Sierra Wireless partner and mobile back-haul specialist, East Baton Rouge Parish EMS selected the ultra-rugged Sierra Wireless AirLink MP 3G in-vehicle router with Wi-Fi. East Baton Rouge Parish EMS is taking advantage of the MP’s advanced communications capabilities for several applications.

• Data collection – When a 911 dispatcher routes a call to EMS, call data from the CAD system gets pushed to a server using cellular broadband provided by the MP and is made available for paramedics to download onto one of two laptops located in each ambulance.

• Reporting – EMTs are often required to use 12-lead Electrocardiogram (EKG) machines to collect and monitor a patient’s heart activity during transport. The information is captured in an electronic report, which can be securely posted to a main database using cellular broadband communications.

• Wi-Fi – The MP creates a Wi-Fi hotspot that allows EMTs to remove their laptops and continue wireless data transfer capabilities outside their vehicles.

• AVL / mapping – Using the MP’s GPS host interface, East Baton Rouge Parish EMS has been able to implement a mapping application, tied into CAD, which allows dispatch to locate emergency vehicles within the parish and provide the most efficient route to the next destination.

• Mobile data – The parish EMS’ telemedicine program allows EMTs to identify high risk situations in the field for which captured EKG data can be forwarded to a medical facility using cellular broadband.

East Baton Rouge Parish EMS has deployed about 40 MP routers in its ambulances and emergency support vehicles, and the parish has continued roll-out to its other public safety organizations. The parish’s police department is currently in the process of deploying another 400+ MP routers into its law enforcement vehicles.
 
“Adding the MP routers to our solution has shown a significant improvement in our ability to capture the data we need to work more efficiently and make better business decisions,” said Darryl Beard, EMS Planning & Research Manager at East Baton Rouge Parish EMS.

Solution benefits include:
• Secure, reliable connectivity for real-time reporting and access to mission critical CAD and information databases

• Mobile 3G/Wi-Fi access point that transforms the vehicle into a mobile gateway to provide connections to any Wi-Fi enabled device

• Resource management for easy global or individual changes within the MP fleet

• Improved data collection for mobile reporting and business analysis

• Enhanced emergency response from GPS location tracking used by dispatch