Tropos® Networks, the market leader for metro-scale wireless mesh network systems, today announced its 230 square-mile Wi-Fi network in Tucson has enabled the successful implementation of ER-Link, the nation's first operational video-based Emergency Medical Services (EMS) telemedicine system. In addition, the same Tropos MetroMesh network infrastructure is being leveraged for traffic signal management, cutting the city's telecommunication costs by $200,000 a year.

ER-Link enables doctors at Tucson's University Medical Center to use video and vital information telemetry to gain a sense of the severity of a patient's condition by viewing and in some cases speaking to patients in real time from Tucson Fire Department ambulances en route to the hospital. For trauma patients, time is of the essence and it is critical the right personnel and equipment be available when the patient arrives in the ER. As of August 3rd, all of the Department's 17 ambulances have been equipped with the ER-Link system.

"With ER-Link, doctors at the Medical Center can get patient information as soon as they're en route and assist medics, if necessary, on how to treat them. Minutes count, so any tool that sends better information, faster, to the hospital and permits evaluation of a patient's condition is an enormous asset," said Tucson assistant fire chief Dave Ridings. "With ER-Link in our department's ambulances, our medics can use the camera to zoom in on an injury, for example, so a doctor can view it. They can also transmit vital signs, and an exterior camera can even give trauma surgeons real-time images of an accident scene."

According to Doctor Terence Valenzuela, Emergency Physician, University Medical Center, and Medical Director of the Tucson Fire Department, "At our trauma center, there are three levels of injury severity - red, white and green - each requiring a different physician team to be present when an injured person arrives. We don't want to call the entire Trauma Service if it's not medically necessary. Seeing the trauma patient en route via ER-Link allows the telemetry intermediary nurse to decide which level of trauma response is needed, whether it's the whole trauma team, one member of the team and/or one or more emergency physicians. We'll expand ER-Link's use to other problems, but this initial implementation is already making a difference."