In the future, this technology will continue to be used in different parts of patient care—not only level I trauma centers, but also levels II and III—to create a way for these data to be seamlessly transferred from point to point.
The emergency hotline of Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New York City received a call: EMS is transporting a 7-year-old boy who was hit by a car. A 12-person Level I trauma team was activated to cope.
When the team assembles and prepares for the patient’s arrival, they have a new tool in their kit. This is a cutting-edge application called T6 that runs exclusively on the iPad and uses data to provide real-time feedback to medical professionals as they manage life-saving trauma care.
Nathan Christopherson is the vice president of surgery at Northwell Health, the largest health care provider in New York State. He oversees all trauma centers, including Cohen Children’s Medical Center. He is also a veteran and served as a combat medic in the Army for more than a decade. It was this experience that prompted him to introduce T6 to Northwell’s emergency care, the first civilian healthcare provider in the United States to do so.
“One of the most important parts of trauma care is how the patient passes through the medical system,” Christopherson said. “In the military, from managing on-site conditions to transportation, to reaching the combat support hospital, and then continuing-one of the keys to optimizing the journey is data communication. We have learned these lessons and applied them to the civilian field, and T6 is An important part of helping us solve this problem.”
Trauma surgeon Dr. Morad Hameed, one of the co-founders of T6, used the rich history of military trauma medicine to inform the development of the application.
T6 allows medical teams to input and analyze patient data in real time via iPad. In the hospital environment, data such as vital signs and injury details are entered into the app and displayed on a large screen for the entire trauma team to view, as well as standard care guidelines and alerts. At the scene, whether in an ambulance or a medical helicopter, or if the T6 is being used by a military team or medical staff, the iPad application will allow real-time virtual communication between the manager and the trauma team in another location.
In addition to its adoption at Northwell Health, the T6 is also used by the US military at the Craig United Theater Hospital in Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
The name T6 comes from the concept of “prime time”, that is, a period of time after trauma, where medical intervention will help ensure the best results. Based on lessons learned from the battlefield, this time frame is generally considered to be about six hours.
“When an unstable patient entered the hospital due to trauma and met a large, multidisciplinary medical team to treat them, time has passed,” Hamid said. “If we can capture it, then this intersection is a huge source of rich data. T6 aims to do this, with enough detail and relevance, so that we can actually improve our performance instantly, and this is It’s never been done in the healthcare field.”
For example, T6 will trigger an alarm to replenish the patient with calcium at specific intervals during a large blood transfusion, because this process consumes calcium, which is essential for healthy heart function. T6 alerts and guidelines are constantly updated to reflect current best practices so that trauma and other emergency care teams are always up to date with the latest medical protocols.
Igor Muravyov, co-founder of T6, said: “We want to transform existing treatment models and use data in a new interactive way.” “Every piece of information entered into T6 is immediately analyzed to provide clinical decision support . We designed this app to allow you to navigate to more than 3,000 data entry fields in two to three touches, and this intuitive experience is only possible on the iPad.”
Apple’s software development kit (including CloudKit) enables T6 to synchronize patient data and decision support across multiple devices.
“T6 only runs on Apple for many reasons: safety, reliability, ease of use, power and portability,” Muravyov said. “For Apple, we know that the quality of the hardware will be excellent, and because T6 is used in hospitals and the military, security is of paramount importance to us, and there is no higher data security standard than the Apple ecosystem.”
Colonel Omar Bholat is a trauma surgeon at Northwell Health. He has served in the Army Reserve for the past 20 years and has participated in six combat tours. Before the launch of T6, he had begun to receive training on T6 in the hospital where he practiced.
“Information is power, and T6 is an excellent tool to improve the accuracy of information transmission throughout the patient care process,” Bholat said. “In the military, we understand the importance of moving severely injured patients out of the battlefield. T6 will help simplify the flow of data from the point of injury to the ICU and anywhere in between-this will be huge for trauma medicine, regardless of Is it for civilian or military use.”
The T6 app has been used in Northwell Health’s two Level I trauma centers and is scheduled to be fully launched by the end of 2022.
“We have seen that teams using the app are increasingly complying with trauma guidelines,” Christopherson said. “In the future, this technology will continue to be used in different parts of patient care-not only in the level I trauma center, but also level II and level III-to create a way for these data to be seamlessly transferred from point to point. I can also see EMS uses it at the scene of an accident to capture photos and videos to help inform care, as well as telemedicine in rural hospitals-T6 has the ability to do all this.”
Back in the emergency department of Cohen Children’s Medical Center, all members of the trauma team have assembled. Only then did they know that the patients they were treating were not real-it was part of the simulated events that the hospital runs every month to improve and simplify their skills. But this did not stop them from reacting, as if the medical dummy lying on the table in front of them was a boy who was hit by a car. They input his vital signs and injuries into T6, and observe the program to respond with protocols and alarms. When the team decides that the patient needs to be transferred to the operating room, the simulation ends.
Like many tools Christopherson brought to Northwell Heath, these simulations can be traced back to his time in the military.
“I think we can always do better, and in the military, the same is true-we are always looking for ways to be more effective and save more lives,” Christopherson said. “The application of T6 is part of it. After all, the most important thing is to help people-this is my motivation.”
Post time: Nov-15-2021