Updated: July 31, 2000
This is the most recent structured information on this project. Complementary data can be found on previous documents
HECTOR Health Emergency Management and Coordination through Telematics Operational Resources

Overview

HECTOR (Health Emergency management and Coordination through Telematics Operational Resources) main goal is to fill the actual gap, making available an integrated and interoperable solution, based mainly on existing technology and incorporating multimedia and telecommunications new capabilities, to satisfy in a innovative manner these needs, with an optimum cost benefit trade off.

The integrated telematic system conceived will satisfy following aspects:

• able to react promptly and efficiently to any emergency situation,
• allowing clinical data transmission flow bidirectionally,
• With a virtual telepresence of medical expertise at the point of care,
• allocating the correct amount and type of resources,
• guaranteeing continuity of care within a framework of service and quality,
• minimising the intervention time and
• providing training to professionals and information to citizens.

Purpose and objectives

HECTOR stated as its main singularity the multidisciplinary approach in the research method, finding solutions as a whole, covering the multiplicity of scenarios, diversity of functions and agents involved.

Right before the project started, all the partners involved felt that using open inexpensive off-the-shelf technologies as the base of interoperable solutions and after some adaptation and integration work, the future Health Emergency Management Systems would give an answer to the needs detected :

• able to react promptly and efficiently to any emergency situation,
• allowing clinical data transmission flow bidirectionally,
• with a virtual telepresence of medical expertise at the point of care,
• allocating the correct amount and type of resources,
• guaranteeing continuity of care within a framework of service and quality
• minimising the intervention time and
• providing training to professionals and information to citizens

HECTOR Consortium has two main objectives:

• to define and build an integrated system based on existing technology and incorporating multimedia and telecommunication new capabilities focused to improve coordination and management in health emergencies organisational models for the HECTOR system

• to verify that innovative telematic technology is effectively and realistically able to improve the performance of the healthcare organisations devoted to urgency and emergency situations, and thus improving citizen's attention and professional's work

In order to reach the stated objectives HECTOR tackled the following challenges:

• diminish intervention time
• improve therapeutic intervention through
• start treatment in the emergency unit
• exchange clinical data
• consult remote medical specialists
• improve cost effective service and rational use of resources
• avoid non detected emergencies
• diminish false emergencies
• improve continuity of care in emergency
• improve technology integration through application of
• advanced mobile telecommunications
• portable hardware/software
• multimedia transmission

The group of HECTOR Participants is composed by more than 45 companies and institutions from 10 different European Countries. Together with relevant industrial enterprises and telecommunication operators, the project has been user oriented from the beginning.

Users' involvement has been established within HECTOR in the strongest way possible: having users' institutions and organisations as contractors in all the participant countries. EPES (ES), Spedali Civili (I), LAS (UK), Hospital de Egas Moniz (Pt), SAMU92 (F) are just some of them, having the mandate in their region to deliver, manage or plan emergency services.

Moreover, each of them has assumed the responsibility to enlarge co-operation in its own country/region with all the other relevant users' institutions, such as volunteers' associations, fire brigades or civil protection agencies, ministry of health, etc.

The concentration of well known and respected partners in the emergency management and technical fields within the project consortium, constitutes a critical mass that acts in a beneficial way in this market. HECTOR has made demonstrators of an integrated system with functionality and operation capability in three main areas: management of resources, medical data flow and training aspects and information to citizens. Although the project development covers all complete cycle of life, it exists an special significance and intensity in the validation and verification stage that after intermediate prototypes testing, ends with its demonstration in 16 Pilots in 11 Sites in 9 countries.

Multiple ones are the scenarios where health emergency activities evolve, and this is one of the bigger difficulties found when defining a common European picture of the Health Emergency World. Probably, one of the main achievements of HECTOR was to unify the emergency terminology among all the partners.

In any single emergency case, many different points of care are activated. Like cells within a network, each of them performs their own specialised tasks for the citizens, but when an emergency is triggered all of them must interconnect and work as a single service provider. From the Patient Home/Accident Site to the Hospitals, as well as the Mobile Units, the Health Emergency Coordination Centres, the Primary Care Centres, …, all of them are places where any single life can be saved.

The new approach that HECTOR is promoting and provoking of building the second generation of Health Care Emergency Information Systems based on the upgrading of the communication layer (first generation) by adding clinical, positioning and management information, including mobile and fixed units, has become essential for the development of what we think will be the third generation IT systems, that is the integration within the Integrated Health Care Networks, future paradigm in the European (and global) health care models. The foundation laid down during the first year of the project with the sound analysis of the user requirements, the strong commitment of the authorities and emergency organizations involved, the technical work for the integration of standard software tools and applications within the HECTOR platform have made that HECTOR rather than a simple project, is becoming a "de facto" new concept for the European Emergency Organizations.

The extensive technical work done fulfills our main objective: to identify the concept of a common (but not unique) information system for health emergency management that enables the "plug-In" of specified applications with independence of HC emergency legacy systems. Nevertheless, our self imposed constraint of using standard tools and software pieces has been one of our main handicaps.

Results

Solutions like :

• Image transmission systems using GSM or any other existing or future suitable communication infrastructure (even from a helmet)
• Mobile Unit Portable Terminals able to share electronic healthcare records (EHCRs) as well as GeoPositioning Data with the rest of scenarios via GSM, satellite or trunking,
• Coordination stations able to manage mobile units using GPS and GIS tools, sharing EHCRs with any other scenarios and activating Mobile Units using predefined messages reducing the voice communications,
• Hospital stations that broadcast the Hospital ward's bed availability, and share EHCRs, facilitating the continuity of care
• Telemedicine Workstations that locate only one call away the specialists from the isolated points of care allowing the interchange of EHCRs, biosignals and X-ray images, etc.
• And more.

All of them have been built or adapted with the openness as the main premise, having a minimum effort to be dedicated to plug them in any system.

With HECTOR compliant system components integrated in existing health (emergency) management systems and after the strong relationships created, as a value added effect, among many of the Health Emergency Service Providers and Technological Enterprises participating in the project, the image of an Integrated Health Care Network is seen closer in time allowing European citizens as Hector end-users to count on the guarantee of Equity; regardless geographical factors, Access to emergency care and Identical level of care within Europe.

List of deliverables

Year 1

• D1.1 Preliminary report on user needs assessment (3, P)
• D1.2 Operational procedures and user requirements (6, P)
• D1.3 Task analysis (6, P)
• D1.4 Catalogue of application (6, P)
• D2.1 Criteria and general aspect of an integrated emergency information system (6, P)
• D2.2 The HECTOR system & sybsystems definition & specifications (9, P)
• D2.3 Objective and description for the demonstrator test sites (11, R)

Year 2

• D3.1 The HECTOR networks : design, management and preliminary results from experiments (14, P)
• D3.2 The HECTOR networks: final specifications, performance evaluation and management procedures (23, P)
• D4.1 HECTOR platform : specifications and system design(19, R)
• D4.2.n Preliminary pilot test demonstrator(19, P)
• D5.1 The HECTOR platforms: final specifications, performance evaluation and management procedures(22, R)
• D5.2 Results of system assessment from verification phase (usability and cost/benefits) (22, P)
• D6.1 Materials and educational programmes for training(22, P)

Year 3

• D4.3 HECTOR platform : implementation, installation in test sites and demonstration(29, P)
• D5.3 Results from validation (demonstration stage) (33, P)
• D6.2 Final report on training systems use(32, P)
• D7.1 Technology implementation Plan(36, R)
• D7.2 Explotation and marketing Plan(36, R)
• D7.3 Final system version of HECTOR platform for presentation(36, P)
• D7.4 Guidelines for integration of emergency services at the metropolitan and regional level(36, P)
• D7.5 Review of indicators of success (project and cluster levels) (36, P)

List of participants

	Copyright 1998 © EHTO All rights reserved This server is the only official EHTO WWW knowledge repository. Mail suggestions to: webmaster@ehto.org