AT&T and Washington Hospital Center unveiled CodeHeart this week, a platform that allows cardiologists to view video and test results (an ECG, for example) of a patient in transit during critical care situations. The app, which was conceptualized by doctors at Washington Hospital, is available for desktops, tablets, and smartphones.
According to the company, cardiologists can use the app to assess a patient’s physical condition via video link, talk with the patient’s first responder, review test results, and prepare for the patient’s arrival to the emergency room. Videos will be archived for later review.
The app will help the hospital more efficiently distribute its care team and resources since it will be able to determine a patient's condition before their arrival.
Washington Hospital Center has already rolled out the CodeHeart app at six hospitals. The center serves patients who live as far as hundreds of miles away from Washington D.C., which means enabling physicians and first responders to communicate ahead of time could be a crucial element of the new service.
AT&T recently created a new executive position, Chief Medical Information Officer, and appointed Dr. Geeta Nayyar to it. AT&T has kept busy in the mHealth space, announcing partnerships over the last couple of years with a number of companies, including WellDoc, Vitality, and MedApps. It also recently entered the imaging space with a cloud-based service offering, AT&T Medical Imaging and Information Management service, which launched this summer.
“Washington Hospital Center has been in the forefront in heart care for decades,” stated Lowell Satler, MD, director of Interventional Cardiology at the Hospital Center in a press release. “When it comes to treating a patient who appears to be suffering from chest pain or other heart attack symptoms, every second counts. CodeHeart delivered from AT&T’s network helps us provide optimal care as quickly as possible and effectively treat every heart patient that comes to our facility.”
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Read the press release below.
PRESS RELEASE -- Key Facts:
Washington Hospital Center conceptualized “CodeHeart,” the highly secure mobile application solution developed and customized in collaboration with AT&T* that provides a real-time video and audio stream that can be used in critical care situations, such as ambulances in transit.
For example, the solution can be used by hospital cardiologists to view, in real-time, a patient's condition while simultaneously speaking with the patient’s first responder or the attending Emergency Department (ED) physician. Importantly, the solution also provides physicians the ability to view vital signs and test results—like electrocardiograms (ECG)—captured through the real-time video feed.
Using the mobile application, cardiologists can assess and prepare cardiac treatment before the patient arrives at the ED. See how the solution works in this video.
The custom application can be downloaded to mobile devices of authorized physicians or hospital workstations, and allows instant streaming or video archiving via AT&T’s network and is designed to transport and store protected health information in accordance with the HIPAA Security Rule.
AT&T and Washington Hospital Center
This new solution allows first responders to remotely initiate a real-time video/audio session with hospital cardiologists so they can instantly view a patient’s condition and ECGs, guide the first responder on interim treatment and prepare the hospital to provide appropriate care while the patient is en route to the emergency room.
The solution helps Washington Hospital Center more efficiently dedicate its care team and resources. The Hospital Center’s care team will be able to determine in advance how to prepare for treatment – either with immediate preparation in the ED, by dispatching physicians to a patient in the field who cannot be readily transported, or by allocating physicians to the most critical patients once they arrive.
The application, which was developed and customized for Washington Hospital Center through a collaboration with AT&T, can be downloaded to mobile devices of authorized physicians and hospital workstations for convenient access. In addition, the live video content can be streamed or immediately archived so physicians can revisit the data at a later time if needed.
Washington Hospital Center has implemented the solution at six hospital sites to date. The Hospital Center serves patients located hundreds of miles from Washington, D.C. and the CodeHeart application allows physicians and first responders to view a patient’s condition remotely in both rural and urban markets.
Quote
“Washington Hospital Center has been in the forefront in heart care for decades,” said Lowell Satler, MD, director of Interventional Cardiology at the Hospital Center. “When it comes to treating a patient who appears to be suffering from chest pain or other heart attack symptoms, every second counts. CodeHeart delivered from AT&T’s network helps us provide optimal care as quickly as possible and effectively treat every heart patient that comes to our facility.”
About Washington Hospital Center
Washington Hospital Center is a 926-bed major teaching hospital and a proud member of the MedStar Health system. It is the largest private, not-for-profit hospital in the nation’s capital, among the 50 largest hospitals in the nation and a major referral center for the most complex tertiary services. It consistently ranks among the nation’s top hospitals as recognized in U.S.News & World Report. The Hospital Center is a national leader in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and endocrinology, emergency medicine, women’s services, trauma and burn care, and neurosciences. It operates MedSTAR, one of the country’s top shock-trauma and medevac programs, and also operates the region’s only adult burn center.
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company and one of the most honored companies in the world. Its subsidiaries and affiliates – AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. A leader in mobile broadband and emerging 4G capabilities, AT&T also offers the best wireless coverage worldwide of any U.S. carrier, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verse® and AT&T ?DIRECTV brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive are known for their leadership in local search and advertising.
Additional information about AT&T Inc. and the products and services provided by AT&T subsidiaries and affiliates is available at http://www.att.com. This AT&T news release and other announcements are available at http://www.att.com/newsroom and as part of an RSS feed at www.att.com/rss. Or follow our news on Twitter at @ATT.
