MedAire | Inflight App

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  • 2020

  • Digital
    Apps and Software

Designed By:

Commissioned By:

MedAire

Designed In:

New Zealand

MedAire provide remote medical support to inflight medical emergencies all over the world. 95% of all global commercial airlines use MedAire in the event of an emergency. Together we reduced the time taken to communicate vital information from the cabin to the doctors. An app created to help save lives.


  • CHALLENGE
  • SOLUTION
  • IMPACT
  • MORE
  • MedAire needed to find a solution to enable improved communication during inflight medical emergencies. The key problems with the radio communication were: • Audio quality is poor. • The flight crew are unable to contact MedLink while physically next to the passenger – instead they have to walk back and forth from the passenger’s location to the cockpit during Q&A with MedLink doctors which means valuable time is wasted in a medical emergency. • WiFi is now available on many aircrafts and has opened new communication opportunities however MedAire hadn’t deployed any solutions to leverage this.

  • To answer this unique challenge we worked through a process of ideation, prototyping and user testing. We had to consider limitations like wifi availability, limited cabin light and passenger data privacy. We designed and built ‘In-Flight’. In-Flight is an app designed to be used by cabin crew to capture vital passenger information quickly and send it directly to MedAire, at 40,000 ft. The app has the following features and functionality: • Ability to describe the patient symptoms and behaviour based on medically predefined but adaptive pathways and scenarios. Examples of these are: o Responsive / Unresponsive o Seizure o Patient medical background

  • This app is first of its kind and helps expedite time to care for passengers experiencing medical issues, allowing crew to easily capture important diagnostic information and transmit it to MedAire’s medical advisory service for expert advice and assistance. True to the International SOS mantra ‘Worldwide reach, Human touch’, the app is designed to navigate quickly under pressure, enabling airlines and their customers to travel knowing that the best medical care is accessible at the push of a button, even at 40,000 ft. The social impact of this application is huge, its sole purpose being to save time, save lives.

  • Each element of data entry from individual controls is displayed on a summary page. This page is then: o Sent to MedLink o Saved to camera roll o Can be sent via email to the patient o Can be sent via airdrop (for no connectivity) o Auto-populated with airline details A back button allows the individual to update the symptoms on the go if needed be, updating the pathways accordingly. • Ability to call ground control anytime • CPR video prompting in case the answer to “is patient conscious” is no. • Consciousness instructions prompting if answer to “is patient conscious” is no.