Abstract
In Thailand, emergency illnesses are life-threatening conditions that constitute serious health problems and quick access to definitive care can improve the survival rate of the elderly dramatically. Currently, the pre-hospital emergency medical services have limitations which prevent the treatment from getting to the accident site on time. In this research, we proposed the A-SA SOS application, a mobile-and IoT-based pre-hospital emergency service for the elderly. The system helps the elderly to send the request to the nearest village health volunteers via a mobile application and smart device. After reaching the elderly, the village health volunteers help carry out basic life support to increase the survival rate before sending the patients directly to the Emergency Management System (EMS) agency. To evaluate the system, we tested it for three months in the Sub-district of Suthep in Chiang Mai city. Finally, the incident report showed that the average time to reach the scene (4.91±0.56) to help elderly patients was less than the standard criteria of an average 3 minutes.
Highlights
Based on statistical data reported during the year 2012-2015 of the Emergency Medical Institution of Thailand [1], the number of emergency illnesses increased annually from 1.1 million in 2012 to 1.3 million in 2015, 65 percent of all emergencies is caused by acute illnesses and 35 percent is caused by accidents
The number of elderly patients who died before the arrival of an ambulance squad to the scene (Response Time) within 8 minutes or more than 8 minutes after receiving an incident report from an elderly patient increases every year, the number of the deaths of critical elderly patients is more related to ambulance squads that spend more than 8 minutes to arrive at a scene than the number of deaths of such cases where the ambulance squad responds within 8 minutes
From the usage of a medical emergency rescue system for the elderly in Suthep, Mueang, Chiang Mai, between August 1 - October 31, 2020, it was found that the emergency operations of Suthep Sub-District Municipality totally sent a medical emergency rescue for 226 times
Summary
Thailand has become an aging society. According to the Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University [1], in 2018, there were approximately 11.7 million Thai people aged over 60, accounting for 17.6 percent of the entire nation’s population. Based on statistical data reported during the year 2012-2015 of the Emergency Medical Institution of Thailand [1], the number of emergency illnesses increased annually from 1.1 million in 2012 to 1.3 million in 2015, 65 percent of all emergencies is caused by acute illnesses and 35 percent is caused by accidents. The deaths of the elderly who are emergency patients outside the hospital tend to increase every year [2][3]. It was found that there were elderly deaths before receiving emergency services in 1,436 cases in 2013 and it increased to 1,786 cases in 2016. The development of an emergency medical system to be effective is essential to save lives and reduce the loss, including the disability of an emergency patient. An Out-of-hospital emergency operations guide has been developed for all levels to guide the practice of medicine that must be under the supervision of a medical professional staff and as a guide for medical practitioners to supervise emergency operators who are not medical professionals [4][5]
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