Remote Medical Support in Emergency Scenarios: A WebRTC-Based Solution

In emergency medical scenarios, the lack of immediate access to expert medical advice can result in delayed treatment and increased mortality rates. Timely and effective communication between on-site emergency operators and remote doctors is crucial for the delivery of most medical treatments and for saving lives. This work proposes a novel system designed to provide remote medical support using web real-time communication (WebRTC) technology. The system enables healthcare professionals to offer immediate assistance to on-site operators through real-time audio and video communication. The presented approach leverages the capabilities of WebRTC to facilitate low-latency and peer-to-peer connections, ensuring that critical medical advice is delivered promptly and efficiently. In this article, the architecture of the system and its implementation are detailed, and a first assessment of its performance is provided. Preliminary evaluations, including the deployment of a working prototype under different experimental configurations, demonstrate the system's potential to enhance emergency response outcomes by bridging the gap between remote medical expertise and on-site emergency care. A scalability study is also performed showing the efficiency of the system in the presence of concurrent users.