While Canada-U.S. trade may be on shaky ground, a cross-border first responder initiative in the Belleville area is not. The partnership is meant to bring about a Siri-like program tailored specifically for first responders, but it’s name will be AUDREY.
The Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Service is teaming-up with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and NASA to create this system that aims to provide information during critical incidents when paramedics are treating patients, using the same type of technology that’s now found in many homes.
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Doug Socha is chief of the Hastings-Quinte Paramedic Service.
“Our service Hastings-Quite Paramedic Service with the Paramedic Chiefs of Canada have been working with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab,” Socha said. “They’ve created an artificial intelligence computer called AUDREY.”
AUDREY — which stands for Assistant for Understanding Data through Reasoning Extraction and sYnthesis — is very much like Siri or Alexa, only in this case she’ll bring her state-of-the-art, human-like reasoning system to first responders, including paramedics. Socha says as the technology starts to move into medicine, it’s important to be involved at the ground floor level to find-out what works and what doesn’t.
“This really is about focusing on the patient, even when paramedics are connecting with AUDREY it’ll always be the paramedic and that critical decision… AUDREY is there simply as a decision support tool.”
Testing on the new system — at least locally — will begin in early 2019, and many paramedics on this side of the border are looking forward to it.
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