As the team assembles and prepares for the patient’s arrival, there’s a new tool in their kit. It’s a cutting-edge app called T6 that runs exclusively on iPad and leverages data to give medical professionals real-time feedback as they administer lifesaving trauma care.
Nathan Christopherson is vice president of surgery for Northwell Health, New York State’s largest healthcare provider, and he oversees all of its trauma centers, including Cohen Children’s Medical Center. He’s also a veteran, having served as a combat medic in the Army for more than a decade, and it’s that experience that led him to introduce T6 into Northwell’s emergency care — the first civilian healthcare provider in the US to do so.
“One of the most important parts of trauma care is how a patient moves through a medical system,” says Christopherson. “In the military, that’s going from managing the situation in the field, to transport, to arrival at a combat support hospital, and then onward — and one of the keys to optimizing that journey is the communication of data. We’ve taken those lessons and applied them to the civilian world, and T6 is a big part of helping us with that.”