The Journal of mHealth Vol 2 issue 5 (Oct) | Page 9

Industry News

Doctors Develop New Trauma
Training App
Doctors and medical students at South Devon Healthcare NHS
Foundation Trust have released a new app they claim could curb
the number of deaths from trauma injuries.
The team had become concerned at how trauma is an increasingly significant cause of death and disability throughout the
world, with developing countries having the highest number
of such fatalities, often connected with road accidents, violent
crime, civil and military conflicts and landmine injuries.
In response, their new Primary Trauma Care (PTC) app has
been built for both Android and Apple (iOS) devices to help
– offering a resource for clinicians to quickly reference information from the standard manual in the field on their best options
for managing all aspects of treating a severely injured patient,
including pediatric trauma and trauma in pregnancy.
Primary Trauma Care is a system of training for front-line
staff in trauma management, aimed at preventing death and
disability in seriously injured patients. It is aimed at the needs
and logistics of health practitioners in the developing world,
by providing straightforward clinical practice that doesn’t
require access to high-tech facilities.
This training App has been designed to be used by people who
have attended Primary Care Trauma courses which are run
free of charge around the world by the organisation. The PTC
course is widely regarded as a worldwide standard for doctors,
nurses, paramedics and other health professionals working in

resource-poor contexts.
The app is costed at £2.29, with a plan for money from all sales to
go to the maintenance and ongoing development of the app, in
addition to the provision of future trauma care courses globally.
“A PTC app seemed the logical next step given the success of
other educational Apps, and taps into the widespread use of
smartphones which we have observed even in remote environments,” commented app project leader Dr Kerri Jones, Associate Medical Director for Innovation and Improvement at Torbay Hospital’s Horizon Institute.
The App is available for download on the App Store and Google
Play. For more information visit www.primarytraumacare.org. n

Code of Practice for Wellness Apps
Published
BSI, the business standards company has
launched a new code of practice, in conjunction with Innovate UK, specifically
designed for Health & Wellness Apps.
The new guidance - PAS 277 Health and
Wellness Apps: Quality Criteria Across
the Life Cycle - stems from the research
and strategy report ‘A Framework for
standards to support innovation in Long
Term Care’, which was published by BSI
in September 2014.
As populations age, those within communities who are living with debilitating
conditions (and their carers) face new
challenges in their everyday lives. To

meet this need and be at the forefront of
innovation, work is being championed to
revolutionise long term care.
PAS 277 will allow app developers to
come up with innovative ways of providing solutions that can be adopted by
healthcare professionals and the public. More specifically, it identifies where
standards can support the revolution of
radical new ways of delivering solutions
to long term care. As part of this, PAS
277 was developed for the governance
and life cycle of healthcare apps, so that
developers can ensure their products are
of a high quality and fit for purpose.

The purpose of the PAS is to develop a
set of principles that health app developers should follow, in order to ensure
that their products and services can be
trusted by healthcare professionals and
the public. By developing health apps
that are of a high quality, and are fit-forpurpose, health care professionals will
develop a growing confidence in their
benefit, which will increase usage. The
public will be able to use health and wellness apps to proactively manage their
healthcare needs, and use their own data
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The Journal of mHealth

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