Ambulance

Focus on the IPTS Concept Ambulance
FERNO’s IPTS
Concept Ambulance
is Ready to Go Live
By Jon Ellis, MD, Ferno UK
We have been sowing the seed of the Integrated Patient Transport System for over two years. Starting
with ACETECH Vehicle Intelligence, then iN∫X our integrated and transport loading system and finally
iN∫TRAXX our modular Ambulance interior. Information such as fuel savings, safer driving standards
and a simple protocol change, making it safer for the patient and easier for the Paramedic. The whole
concept gives many other major benefits from reduced total vehicle weight, improving carbon footprint,
easier make-ready and asset protection.
But perhaps we should tell you more of the story…
Joe Bourgraf, President & CEO - Ferno
Group has always had big shoes to fill for
what we call the FERNO FAMILY, a group
of worldwide companies and a massive
distributor network which is ever-growing
and was started by his father, Elroy. Our
beginnings stem from making COTS (we
call them Stretcher Trolleys) to move dead
or injured people but innovations such as
the SCOOP®, the KED® and many more
soon made us the global leader and EMS
specialist. Developing better products has
been instrumental in developing the EMS
market and ambulance industry into what it
is today. Post 9/11, the American government
wanted companies like FERNO to make our
rescue-heroes’ lives even safer, to further
innovate and take an holistic approach to the
symptoms of an unsafe world that we live in
today.
SafePak System, iN∫TRAXX Wall and equipment mounts
Joe took that challenge and with some ideas
and a team of global experts formed a
think tank, they put a lot of ideas down and
decided that the concept needed to be in
three parts:
1. Technology - areas of advanced
communication, information and new ideas
2. Medic - making the working day/life easier
and safer
3. Vehicle – looking at making the
environment smarter and better
These three parts all wrap around the
patient experience.
Ideas started to form and the benefits began
to hit home and then somebody came up
with the idea of coining the phrase IPTS -
Integrated Patient Transport System. We had
concepts; we had the desire to develop and
to invest to make them a reality.
The Journey
Millions in investment and human
resource hours have been put into
bringing these innovations to life. Research
and Development has been very busy
throughout our global operations in order
to achieve our goal of bringing these exciting
new innovations to market with the support
of the Global Marketing Team. We all believe
in the new innovations and it is an exciting
time to be with FERNO as we are ready to
launch the most innovative solutions to be
introduced within the EMS World for over
60 years!
Introduction to IPTS
Are you ready to take the next step? Well
we know you are because it would have
been remiss of us to leave it until now to find
out. We developed Customer Experience
Centres to showcase our initial concept IPTS
components and present the FERNO vision
to the global EMS industry.
With IPTS you can save £millions and that’s
the bottom line! FERNO can save the Whole
Health Economy a fortune in terms of
time and efficiency. There may be an initial
increase in capital cost - bringing this kind of
innovation to market doesn’t come cheap,
protecting our intellectual property with
patents, designing new innovations, tooling
investment, then testing them to the most
stringent global crash standards at 26G
forces has been a global endeavor.
86 Spring 2016 | Ambulancetoday