America News: GM partners with CDC to improve emergency crash response

The GM Foundation has announced a partnership with the Centres for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) and the CDC Foundation to develop procedures to improve the ability of emergency medical responders to determine if a motorist needs care at a trauma centre after a vehicle crash.

CDC will convene a panel of more than twenty emergency medical physicians, trauma surgeons, public safety and vehicle safety experts to review real-time crash data from OnStar’s Advanced Automatic Crash Notification (AACN) vehicle telematics system, as well as similar systems from other companies.

The panel meetings will be funded by a $250,000 grant from OnStar and the GM Foundation to the CDC Foundation. As a federal agency, CDC does not promote or endorse specific products.

Vehicle telemetry systems like OnStar send crash data to an advisor if the vehicle is involved in a moderate or severe front, rear or side-impact crash. Depending on the type of system and sensors, the data can include information on crash severity, direction of impact, air bag deployment, multiple impacts and a rollover.

Advisors can relay this information to emergency dispatchers helping them to quickly determine the appropriate combination of emergency personnel, equipment and medical facilities needed.

Dr. David Cone, president of the National Association of EMS Physicians, said that the goal is to develop evidence-based protocols that will allow the emergency medical community to effectively use automotive telemetry data to assist in reducing morbidity and mortality through faster patient identification, diagnosis, and treatment.

According to traffic safety and emergency medical experts, such information may be especially important in rural or isolated areas, where there may not be a passerby to report a crash and resources of a level I trauma centre are too far away. Although rural areas account for only 20% of the total annual crashes, these areas account for 60% of the nation’s fatalities.

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