The Europ Assistance Group and the Vendée Globe

Following an accident on Thursday 18th December 2008, the skipper of the yacht Generali, Yann Eliès, is now out of the race.
Europ Assistance is still involved in the Vendée Globe through a highly original initiative:

Europ Assistance Group, a medical prevention player in the Vendée Globe

Throughout the Vendée Globe, the Europ Assistance Group is to test a project for a remote interactive medical solution for isolated environments.
Throughout the sailing competition, the Europ Assistance Group, a Medical Prevention player in the Vendée Globe, will define and validate the requirements, constraints and specificities of a project involving a future remote interactive medical solution in an isolated environment, named RCA (Remote Control Aid).

The aim of this innovative project with high technological added value is to offer all isolated patients remote interactive medical assistance via public mobile terminals (PDAs, mobile telephones, laptop computers, etc.), starting in 2009.

Throughout the Vendée Globe, Dr Jean-Yves Chauve, the Official Race Doctor, together with the teams from the Europ Assistance Group's International Health Solution Division, which specializes in risk-prevention and management in isolated environments (on-site medical care, Travel for Treatment, etc.), will model the typical profile of an "isolated patient" in the extreme conditions experienced by skippers. They will also define and validate the most appropriate technological and ergonomic parameters.

By modelling all the routine and emergency health incidents encountered by the skippers of the Vendée Globe fleet in real and extreme conditions, the Europ Assistance Group's teams and the Official Race Doctor will thus build up a prototype for a genuine Virtual Doctor's Practice of which all the diagnoses can then be made available to isolated patients using a multimedia technology adapted to the constraints and needs of these highly specific situations.

Combined with specific treatment kits designed in close collaboration with SMI (Service Médical International), a specialist in mobile treatment equipment, this innovation should also enable the Europ Assistance Group's medical teams to speed up the treatment of isolated patients on site, as soon as conditions for intervention become possible.

This unique experience is the logical extension of all the work carried out by Dr Jean-Yves Chauve over the years, notably through his "Guide de la médecine à distance" (Remote medicine guide) and the 45 years of experience and technological innovation accumulated by Europ Assistance, the inventor of assistance.

Developed by the teams of the Europ Assistance Group's International Health Division, which manages a number of clinics on behalf of oil and mining companies throughout the world, this highly original initiative once more illustrates the Europ Assistance Group's leadership in offering its customers a comprehensive range of solutions for preventing and managing risk in isolated environments.

Photos credits: Gilles Martin-Raget // Guilain Grenier