The state's ambulance service announced this morning it would next week start a three-month trial into technology that enabled staff to communicate vital patient data from handheld devices to hospitals via cellular networks before arriving.
State IT minister Kim Yeadon said the government aimed to implement the technology throughout New South Wales by 2003.
The government had committed AU$250,000 to the trial, but would need to commit a further AU$10 million to roll out the project state-wide, according Peter Warland, chief executive of Axis Technologies, the IT consultancy contracted to carry out the trials.
Warland said currently most -non-critical" patients Australian ambulances delivered to hospitals were required to -wait for the paperwork to catch up with them."
If the trial was successful, the technology would enable nurses and doctors to prepare for individual patient requirements, a NSW Ambulance Service spokesperson said.
-They're (ambulance workers) very excited about what the unit can do, and how it will assist in pre-hospital care of patients," the spokesperson said.
Warland said Axis would install handheld devices in some ambulances that delivered patients to Sydney's Concord Hospital and monitor the success of those admissions.
He admitted that the technology to be trialled only worked in areas serviced by cellular networks, but he said the statewide rollout would see his company developing -other technology for areas where there are holes."
The trial represented the first use of the technology by ambulances in Australia, he said. However, he said the technology had already been used -in some capacities" in the US.
