swyMed real-time video telemedicine helps save lives with Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN

Picture this: Miles from the nearest hospital, a family calls 911 because their child is having trouble breathing. The local emergency medical service (EMS) rushes to their home. Uncertain of the diagnosis, one of the paramedics tries describing the symptoms to a pediatric emergency physician in the closest hospital, but the cell signal in this rural area is unreliable, quality is poor, and it’s difficult to understand each other. The call eventually drops.

What to do? Risk intubating unnecessarily at the scene or wait until the EMS can transport her on a long journey to the hospital, which presents additional risks.

Treat and monitor patients from anywhere through real-time video

The swyMed DOT Telemedicine Backpack includes everything emergency medical professionals need for a reliable, exceptional quality video telemedicine encounter. Powered by swyMed’s software, the Backpack includes antennas, a redundant dual-modem connection, 8-hour battery, digital scopes, integrated speaker and microphone, ruggedized tablet with a full HD camera. The Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN platform from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, is integrated into the Backpack to ensure high-quality voice and video over cellular connections.

“The magic is the combination of the software and hardware we use,” says Stefano Migliorisi, CEO and cofounder of swyMed. “Our patented software is designed to allow very efficient transmission of patient data and video over common cellular networks.”

Migliorisi continues: “Combining this solution with EdgeConnect ensures reliable, high-quality connectivity even in places where the cellular signal is weak. This enables swyMed to bring a physician—virtually—to the scene of a medical emergency practically anywhere to help the first responders deliver a higher level of care than otherwise would be possible.”

Bring telemedicine to areas with limited connectivity

swyMed software shrinks data packets to a very small and efficient size and uses TCP as the transmission protocol to provide packet loss intelligence. This unique approach meshes perfectly with the EdgeConnect tunnel bonding and path conditioning capabilities, such as forward error correction and packet order correction, which automatically reconstitutes lost or out-of-order packets at the receiving end of a WAN link to avoid network slow-downs resulting from multiple round-trip retransmissions.

EdgeConnect’s advanced network capabilities are vital for enabling swyMed’s telemedicine services in conditions where most people assume that remote medical help could never be available.

Cellular signal quality can vary widely, even within small changes in location, as well as across different providers. In a given location, one provider may have a signal quality of 70 percent while another provider’s signal quality may be at 50 percent. Yet, by bonding the two links with EdgeConnect, swyMed can achieve an aggregate signal quality greater than 90 percent.

“EdgeConnect is so adaptable to any form of connectivity, we can use two different carriers simultaneously to increase signal quality beyond what we could achieve with either carrier individually,” says Migliorisi. “Combined with our patented software, we’re now able to bring mobile telemedicine to areas that would have been impossible in the past due to poor signal strength.”

Help saves lives in medical emergencies

The impact of swyMed’s DOT Telemedicine Backpack on emergency medical care and even routine care is profound. swyMed’s solutions are used by providers in rural hospitals to connect to specialists for remote patient evaluation, home health, EMS/critical transport, mobile telestroke, and mobile integrated healthcare throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East and India.

One real-life example of how swyMed helps saves lives involves a man in Texas suffering from severe chest pain. The local EMS was quickly dispatched and found the patient conscious, but with an abnormal EKG. The EMS team set up a video session on the DOT Telemedicine Backpack so the man’s local doctor could evaluate the patient’s EKG, seeing and talking to him over video to better assess his condition.

The doctor recommended that the man be flown immediately to an academic medical center. Shortly after arriving at the university hospital, the man went into full cardiac arrest. Fortunately, he was in the right place and received the life-saving care he needed, allowing him to be discharged three days later. Had the EMS team simply transported the man to his local hospital, this positive outcome would have been much less certain.

“With EdgeConnect as an enabling technology, we have a versatile mobile connectivity solution that can be extended to numerous industries and applications,” says Migliorisi. “It makes our solution easy to deploy in even the most remote areas. It connects reliably across changing network and does so securely. We are excited about the many possibilities through our partnership with Aruba.”