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Aviation medicine: challenges for telemedicine

2002; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 8; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1258/1357633021937352

1758-1109

O. Ferrer‐Roca, R D Díaz de León, F. J. de Latorre, M. Suárez Delgado, Leandro E. Di Persia, M Cordo,

Travel-related health issues

The number and seriousness of medical problems on passenger-carrying aircraft in flight are increasing. Medical incidents occur at a rate of approximately 10–50 per million passengers carried. Medical equipment carried on commercial aircraft is limited to three items: a first-aid kit, an emergency medical kit and sometimes an automatic external defibrillator. Telephone medicine, a lower level of telemedicine support, is well established for commercial air operations. The availability of satellite telecommunications on passenger-carrying aircraft permits more sophisticated forms of telemedicine. Recent telemedicine experiments have involved the transmission of three-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs), heart rate, blood pressure, arterial oxygen saturation, end-tidal CO 2 , respiratory rate, body temperature and realtime video. The challenge is to demonstrate that such techniques are practicable, improve patient outcomes and are cost-effective.