BMW engineers, doctors working to save lives

MUNICH | Maybe you have heard about the ‘golden hour’ the time a victim of a serious car crash should get medical treatment. But according to professor Dr. Jeffrey Augenstein, director of the trauma center of the Jackson Memorial in Miami, you could better say “every minute counts.”

Of course, he knows, because he is also the director of the William Lehman Injury Research Center, part of the JMM, that since 2001 has been investigating the effects of car accidents in America.

The professor was in Munich on the occasion of the presentation of several systems that BMW now has available with active and passive safety. He spoke about his work in the trauma center and the lessons he has learned.

That working together with the engineers enabled both parties to consider each others expertise. And BMW has some, as the Bavarians have been investigating car crashes from a technical point of view since 1976.

The co-operation has resulted in the addition of an extra function to BMWAssist. It is called Automatic Collision Notification (ACN) and it can save lives.

Models since 2007 are equipped with BMWAssist, that sends a signal to a call center as soon as the car´s sensors register a collision.

The operator calls into the car and attempts to speak to the occupant(s).

In the meantime the system has already transmitted the coordinates of the crash location via GPS, the satellite based global positioning system.

Only when it is clear what the matter is, or if the occupant(s) do not react, the operator calls the 911 system.

Since research of the trauma center proved that this procedure took too much time, the BMW engineers and doctors worked together to determine the characteristics for ACN.

An important factor is that immediately after the collision the so-called Urgency algorithm evaluates the crash data and determines that the occupant is at risk for a thoracic aortic injury (in 90 per cent of the accidents the cause of death) even though the driver was unable to respond.

In case the emergency medical team assumes that the driver is critically injured, a helicopter will be dispatched to take him to the nearest Level 1 trauma center, saving critical time.

All data from car will be analyzed by ACN without interference of the call center, saving valuable time.

Computerized data has been flowing into the electronic record at the trauma center from the moment the 911 call was received.

By the time the patient arrives, all the pre-hospital data and past medical history are in the trauma center´s computer system. And will be available on the doctor´s handheld computer.

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