CURE (Community Urgent Response Environment): portable work stations

The Community Urgent Response Environment (CURE) concept is a new technology system developed to support the work of Emergency Care Practitioners with portable pods and packs and mobile treatment units. This paper describes a project to transfer research outputs from an academic setting into practice through collaboration between two universities, two manufacturers and the United Kingdom (UK) National Health Service. An iterative prototyping process was used with 12 Emergency Care Practitioners evaluating prototypes in two user trials by carrying out four clinical scenarios in three simulated environments (confined domestic, less confined public space, and vehicle). Data were collected with video recording, field notes and post-trial debriefing interviews and analysed thematically. The final prototypes (pod/pack 1.3 and vehicle 1.6) have potential to support a new way of working in the provision of non-critical, pre-hospital care. The user trials also identified possible efficiencies through the use of CURE by providing support for a wider range of assessment, diagnosis and treatment.