Every second counts in rescue operations. GS elektromedizinische Geräte GmbH - corpuls, a leading provider of emergency and intensive care products, is well aware of this. The Bavarian company has been developing innovative medical technology for over 40 years, which is used in rescue operations in particular.
This also includes the corpuls.mission platform, a comprehensive medical communication system that bundles medical data, chat, video and documentation - also known colloquially as "tele-emergency doctor".
Especially in rural or hard-to-reach areas, it is essential for this system to ensure continuous data transmission - both for video telephony and the transmission of the patient's vital data. The company relies on IoT SIM cards from wherever SIM to provide the necessary reliable mobile connection.
A typical operation in which the corpuls tele-emergency doctor system is used looks like this: An ambulance, equipped with the corpuls device, reaches the patient with breathing problems. There, an ECG is performed by the ambulance service to monitor cardiac activity.
The ECG data is not only processed locally on the corpuls3, but is also transferred to the cloud to provide additional, server-based values and diagrams. At the same time, an external emergency doctor, the so-called tele-emergency doctor, is called in via video conference and has direct access to the patient data and vital parameters. Together with a video call, he can assess the situation remotely and make a suspected diagnosis. ECG data and vital signs continue to be transmitted in real time during the journey so that the tele-EMS physician can react to any changes in the data.
The key point of this telemedicine solution is that, thanks to coordinated communication, staff are already informed about the patient's condition when they arrive at the hospital. Valuable minutes are saved as treatment can be provided immediately. What's more, continuous data transmission means that the operational data can also be evaluated retrospectively and used to optimize processes.
Rescue missions are everywhere. In the city, in rural areas, on the highway. No matter where an operation takes place, the corpuls devices must be able to rely on a flawless connection to the internet. "The connection must not be interrupted," says Philipp Ehmeier, Team Leader Product Management Digital Products. "That's why we chose wherever SIM as our IoT SIM provider back then. The option of being able to access all available networks without having to specify them is fundamentally important for our use case." non-steered roaming makes exactly that possible: the IoT SIM, also known as an M2M SIM card, does not prioritize a specific mobile network operator, but enables the end device to connect to the strongest local mobile network.
Not only reliable network coverage for real-time data transmission, but also high network quality is important for the remote diagnosis of the connected tele-emergency doctor. After all, he must be able to understand the patient and the paramedics well and grasp the situation. This was precisely the decisive reason for switching from a large mobile network operator to wherever SIM. "Network operators usually prioritize their own network first. But when our vehicles and devices are on the move, we have to be able to rely on our product working even if a particular mobile network drops out or the network strength fluctuates." Previously, the company had not had good experiences with controlled roaming, says Ehmeier. "The moment when the network deprioritization intervened was simply too late - often when it was already extremely poor and no more data could be transmitted."
Another significant advantage for the company is that the IoT SIMs from wherever SIM can also be used to access the mobile networks of neighboring countries near the border. This reduces the risk of device failure for corpuls to zero.
Another important point when choosing an IoT SIM provider was the security factor. When private patient data is transmitted, it must be ensured that it is securely encrypted. This is why corpuls relies on a private APN to protect itself against unauthorized access to sensitive data.
In addition to the advantage that the M2M SIM cards from wherever SIM only incur costs from the moment they are activated, Thomas Martin, Product Manager Digital Products, mentions a very important point: "We are often unable to fully estimate how much data volume we will need in advance of an assignment. This depends on the duration of the assignment, the duration of the video communication and the duration of the audio and data transmission. Of course, we roughly calculate this in advance, but we have no influence on whether our devices are used 10 or 30 times a day." In extreme cases, data throttling could cost corpuls lives. "We simply can't afford a data limit," says Martin. For such use cases, wherever SIM offers flexible data tariffs and dynamic pricing. One example is data pooling. A pool for active M2M SIM cards that access a shared data quota so that the lower data consumption of one SIM can be offset against the higher data consumption of another.
corpuls already has over 2,000 M2M SIM cards from wherever SIM in use - and the trend is rising. Despite this, Thomas Martin cannot remember the last time he had contact with the support team at wherever SIM . "I know that we have already worked together on concepts, but so far everything has always run so smoothly that we haven't had to rely on support. I simply manage the SIM cards via the dashboard and can rely on everything working."
