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Assessment of Readiness for ACN

Recently, CDC and the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, amended the Field Triage Guidelines for Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers.  The revision urges providers to include consideration of crash vehicle telemetry data from Advanced Automatic Crash Notification (AACN) systems (e.g., OnStar) when making triage and transport decisions in the field.  Crash severity data in particular, could provide an early indication of the need for air medical transport and immediate surgery.

In light of the above, the CenTIR made use of recently collected data (which characterized cellular signal strength and GPS satellite visibility along Alaska roadways) to assess this rural frontier state’s infrastructure readiness to have medical responders fully exploit AACN telemetry information.  The CenTIR study first mapped fatal motor vehicle crash location data from the FARS database as a representative set of ‘serious’ crashes (Fig 1).  These crash locations were then examined in the context of additional GIS data layers showing cellular signal strength (determines likelihood that an AACN call can be completed (Fig 2)) and GPS satellite visibility (determines likelihood that the crash location can be calculated).   Ground and air ambulance base locations and hospitals and trauma centers were also added to the GIS (Fig 1). Accurate mapping of this medical infrastructure will enable future automated (computer) identification of nearest responders and hospitals who should be provided real-time access to AACN crash information.  (The Atlas & Database of Air Medical Services (ADAMS) was developed by the CenTIR for this anticipated application).  The CenTIR study then computed estimated travel times (by air and ground) from the nearest ambulance base to the crash site to the nearest acute care hospital or trauma center.  The study estimated the percentage of motor vehicle crashes whose victims might reach definitive care within the ‘Golden Hour’ if AACN crash alerts are immediately (and successfully) transmitted within minutes of the crash, to both the 911 center and to the nearest emergency medical providers. 

Click to view the poster, "Assessing Alaska's Infrastructure Readiness for Supporting Expedited EMS Response to Car Crashes in the Age of Crash Vehicle Telemetry" (PDF, 924 KB).