Tele-EMS
Emory University’s Prehospital & Ambulatory Virtual Emergency Services (PAVES) program is a collaboration between Emory Healthcare, EMS agencies, and rural hospital systems across the state of Georgia. The program delivers telemedicine support (tele-EMS) directly to EMS providers and patients in the field. The SRDRS team has integrated PAVES by leveraging existing rural infrastructure and expanding coverage into previously unserved hospital coordination regions statewide.
Through tele-EMS, emergency physicians conduct virtual evaluations and recommend treatment plans at the point of patient contact. The ambulance-based audiovisual platform can also support non-clinical functions, such as consulting with incident commanders during disaster response.
The SRDRS team is now working to adapt this daily-use tele-EMS model into a scalable system for disaster response in both rural and urban areas. Once refined and implemented, the model will serve as a blueprint across Region 4 for rapidly deploying tele-EMS during disasters to enhance regional surge capacity and improve coordinated care in crisis settings.
