3.6 Ferries with Tele ECG at the Baltic Sea

The TT-Line recently equipped all ferries with a transtelephonic ECG device. This give them the opportunity to transmit a ECG, recorded by the crew members, to one of our cardiac centres, connected to the “eHealth for Regions” network.

Partners:

• TT Line, a large shipping company in the Baltic Sea Area. Their six ferries transport about 2,000 to 4,000 passengers every day between Trelleborg (Sweden) and Travemuende or Rostock (Germany).
• Segeberger Kliniken, department for telemedicine, Germany
• County hospital Hässleholm, department for cardiology, Sweden

Overall Objectives:

• a better health care support for travelling citizen
• to evaluate the feasibility and effectiveness of transnational eHealth
• to reduce the time from symptoms to treatment

Methodology and Transnational Value Added:

• The first aid rooms of the ferries of the TT-Line are equipped with a transtelephonic ECG recorder.
• The crew is trained and can record an ECG from a critical passenger.
• The ECG will be transmitted to the multilingual server of the telemedicine centre in Bad Segeberg, Germany and routed from there to the co-operating cardiac centres in a readable format.
• The verbal communication follow up is done in either Swedish or German language, depending of crew native.
• The co-operation with a private shipping company enlarge the network and furthermore the sustainability of the “eHealth for Regions” project.

Status of Implementation:

• All crew members are trained.
• A press conference is in preparation.
• The network can extend without any additional work to Denmark, Poland, Finland, Lithuania or other Baltic Sea countries

If you have any comments to this chapter please contact Werner Smidt, Telemedicine, Segeberger Kliniken, Germany. E-Mail: werner.smidt@segebergerkliniken.de