JACKSON (AMAZON CCN#1) | ESA Space Solutions

Objectives of the service

Direct follow-up of the Amazon project, the Jackson project targets the development a range of products to allow wider implementation of telemedicine and patient data sharing through new technology and to access larger market segments through cardiac electro-therapy solutions.

The objective of this project is to augment the existing Tempus Pro device with new products and services, which will enable its wider adoption by healthcare providers. Additionally, the project will provide electrotherapy solutions to work with the Tempus Pro that will meet the needs of wider user groups and therefore open up new market segments.

Users and their needs

The intended users of the system are professional civilian medical personnel deployed in local-civilian and remote scenarios via a variety of emergency response vehicles. Within this broad group are subgroups of other users whose needs can be differentiated from each other.

These include:

Monitor and defibrillator user - typically an emergency responder - a Paramedic (ranging from basic life support to advanced life support), Intensive Care Paramedic, EMT (Emergency Medical Technician), Doctor or speciality Doctor such as an Intensivist or Anaesthesiologist. They would require:

The system to be intuitive to operate, small, lightweight, robust and fully-featured;
The electrotherapy device to include pacing and cardioversion capabilities with proven and compliant waveform;
The ability to capture all event data from both devices, including CPR feedback;
Data to be integrated into the standard patient record used by the organisation.

Telemedicine user - a medic receiving data transmitted from the device to provide support remotely (this could be real-time support to the treatment of the patient or could be preparation for the arrival of the patient). For example, E.D Physician or Cardiologist. They would require:

Data to cover basic STEMI requirements but preferably provide high levels of acuity for vital signs as well as patient interventions and treatment;
Data to be integrated into the standard patient record used by the organisation;
Data to be secure and accessible.

Data administrator - typically a medic performing post event review of the quality of care provided and compliance-assurance with organisational KPIs. They would require:

Data to provide high levels of acuity for vital signs as well as patient interventions and treatment and Full Code Review;
Data to be in a user-friendly format to analyse and extract with configurable dashboards;
Data to be integrated into the standard patient record used by the organisation;
Data to be secure and accessible;
The system to be usable in small to large institutions with a variety of data hosting approaches.

RDT targets a range of pre-hospital care applications around the globe, with an acute focus on Europe, Australia, New Zealand and North America.

Service/ system concept

This project includes various hardware and software improvements to the existing Tempus Pro as well as the development of a stand-alone fully therapeutic defibrillator, which can be used with the monitor. Also included is the development of a range of accessories, which are required by the civilian pre-hospital market.

The project also includes the development of an entirely new data transmission protocol to enable more secure and reliable communications, as well as a cloud based application to review and manage patient data (live and historic)

Used together, these devices and data management solution will offer the pre-hospital care markets a significantly more configurable and scalable system. This system will meet the existing clinical (monitoring and therapy) requirements of pre-hospital care users, but will allow them to:

Additionally capture more information at the point of care
Transmit this information to more colleagues via a wider range of communications interfaces
Deliver the data to be readable on any device
Access this information (both during care and post-event) via an interface which can be scaled according to the size and needs of organisations

Space Added Value

This project will leverage the existing investment in space assets (Satcom and GNSS data) that were established in the previous Amazon project and utilise them in much larger markets. Having established the use of these technologies in remote and real-time care in the Amazon project, the Jackson project will bring the use of the products into much greater use by introducing them into new, significantly larger markets.

While the current military and remote land markets are attractive markets, the civilian pre-hospital market is an even larger and more attractive market. Based on data from various sources, information from key OEM suppliers, and various European and US government reports the global market for civilian pre-hospital monitors is estimated to be approximately 160 000 units. This covers Europe, USA and sensible rest of world markets such as Australia, Canada and the Middle East. Assuming a replacement rate of once every five years, this scopes the annual market to be approximately 32 000 units per year.

Accessing these much larger markets would drive the use of the previous space technology investments.

RDT believes that its real-world experience of using Satcom in remote telemedicine applications will add particular value and difference in these larger markets.

Current Status

The demonstration phase of the project has now been successfully completed. The system has been implemented with the team at Kent Surrey and Sussex Air Ambulance (AAKSS) and has been a resounding success. To date, the system has been used in approximately 50 cases with the air ambulance, including both critical medical and trauma patients.

They have found data transmission from the Tempus monitor to be possible for the duration of missions, including when flying at 1000ft altitude in the air ambulance helicopter. They have used the data for both AAKSS top cover consultants and hospital receiving teams to give real time scene advice, alter clinical care and prepare for arrival at hospital.

All consultants have found reviewing data very straightforward and intuitive, on both computers and mobile devices.

To date, the key advantages that have been seen using the system in the pre-hospital setting include: