Abu Dhabi: A remote area after midnight. A critically injured person lies on the ground. One medic is kneeling beside them. The nearest specialist is hundreds of kilometres away, evacuation has not yet arrived, and the mobile signal comes and goes.

This is the scenario the American company LifeBot Inc. has used to present its new Medical Command Network, launched today at the 46th ICMM World Congress of Military Medicine in Abu Dhabi.

The company’s chief executive told Gulf News that the system is meant to close a gap in the first critical minutes after an injury.

“It connects the patient at the point of injury with the physicians, and the physicians with the paramedics in the field, on one level,” the Sherif Hamed, CEO at LifeBot Inc. told Gulf News.

A second layer, he said, links everything to a national command centre, where the authorities can see what is happening on the ground and act on it.

The gap at the point of injury

The CEO described the problem as one of expertise.…