FirstNet Will Put Virtual Doctors in the Ambulance, McGinnis Says
FirstNet is especially critical to emergency medical services, among all first responders, said board member Kevin McGinnis at a half-day workshop Monday on the emergency network at the Telecommunications Industry Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Md. McGinnis, president of North East Mobile Health Services, represents EMS on the board. FirstNet was a rare joint effort of police, fire and EMS working together on a single project, he said.
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"Unlike police and fire, every single time we get called it’s a team event,” McGinnis said. “You have a first responder who will get to the scene before the ambulance gets there. The ambulance will come. Perhaps a helicopter will come. Perhaps people to extricate someone from the crashed car will come. … They all to have the same general idea about what’s going to happen to that patient in the next 20 minutes.”
FirstNet will let first responders stream video to and from the hospital, which puts a “virtual doctor” in the ambulance, McGinnis said. That’s especially important in rural areas, where ambulance rides can be lengthy, he said. “There’s also something called the golden hour.” Car accidents, heart attacks, strokes and other injuries are time dependent and early treatment saves lives, he said.
"The bottom line is I'm from the federal government and I may or may not be here to help you,” McGinnis joked, saying he had gotten a phone call from the government saying he had been given an exception and told he could speak to TIA despite the partial federal shutdown.
"Is [FirstNet] going to be a success,” asked Jeffrey Marks, senior counsel at Alcatel-Lucent. “It has to be. I don’t think that we can take any other approach to this other than this is going to be a success and something we're going to work to make a success.” Events keep occurring, like last month’s shooting at the Washington Naval Yard, that emphasize the importance of FirstNet and interoperable communications, he said.
Three or four years ago, if TIA had had a session on FirstNet, it wouldn’t have had the same standing-room only attendance as at Monday’s session, said Tom Koutsky, chief policy counsel at Connected Nation. FirstNet is about interoperability, a concern highlighted by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks where the lack of communications between the New York police and fire departments “was almost a shock to the system,” Koutsy said. People recognized that if two of the most sophisticated public safety agencies in the U.S. couldn’t talk to each other “we really had a nationwide problem on our hands,” he said. “This is a new path for public safety broadband,” he said of FirstNet, saying making devices available to public safety at the same prices paid by the public in itself will be a game changer.
EF Johnson Vice President John Oblak said public safety narrow-band radio was the first focus on standard-setting by a precursor to TIA, starting in 1944. FirstNet is an important, game-changing development, he said. “Is this a fork in the road or is this a whole new direction?” he asked. “I don’t know the answer.” The company sells radios and technology to first responders.
Public safety is now one of standard-setting body 3GPP’s focus areas, said Patrik Ringqvist, vice president of Ericsson North America, saying getting public safety on the list “didn’t happen overnight.” Ringqvist said 3GPP’s other focus areas, such as small cells, Wi-Fi integration, machine-to-machine communications and radio improvements, will be important to public safety as well. “You really need to be active … to influence how 3GPP does things and influence the priorities,” he said. “It takes active participation of public safety in 3GPP to make this work.”