Rapid Emergency Dispatch Interface

Inspiration:

We drew inspiration from the difficulties and burnout faced in EMS due to inaccessible and difficult patient situations whether that be from lack of medical form access or unexpected residential obstacles. Our interface aims to reduce that precious time during an emergency by allowing EMTs/paramedics to have this important information at hand when they arrive on the scene.

What it does:

Our interface provides an option for patients to upload pertinent medical history/forms and accessibility issues within their own homes. EMS will be able to access patient information when they receive an alert from the patients’ end which is triggered by pre-existing wearable devices. This helps to reduce the time needed to respond to an emergency situation.

How we built it:

The REDI website was primarily built using the MERN stack. MongoDB and ExpressJS were used to store client information (e.g. DOB, Diseases/Conditions, etc.) and create relevant routes to query the client database, React with the GatsbyJS framework was used to build the client-facing frontend, and NodeJS was used to connect our frontend and backend. The styled-components was used to add CSS to our components, and Bootstrap componets were utilized to speed up the development process.

Challenges we ran into:

One of the major challenges we ran into was connecting the frontend with the MongoDB backend. Our team has never connected a GatsbyJS frontend with a backend before, so figuring out the relevant packages to download was very time-consuming. We also ran into issues while utilizing React hooks. Because useEffect triggers after rendering, we ran into major issues when we needed to parse through useEffect variables that weren't rendered yet. This was particularly annoying when making the emt main page, as components frequently wouldn't show up, leading to time-consuming bug fixes. In addition, figuring out how to simulate the Life Alert button press was also a minor challenge as well. We first experimented with remote-controlled wireless devices, but quickly realized that it would take far too long to implement along with the website. We ultimately ended up using a "nuke button" on a different computer to simulate a Life Alert signal.

What we learned:

• Documents or information that could help facilitate the response time
• Obstacles EMS and dispatchers meet while dealing with emergency situations

What's next for Rapid Emergency Dispatch Interface:

• Looking into the legality of the proposed actions
• Integrating this technology into an actual alarm device
• Improving the trigger mechanism to reduce false alarms
• Utilizing sockets (e.g. Socket.io) to enable real time chats and updates within the emt dashboard

Built With

• css
• express.js
• html
• javascript
• mongodb
• node.js