Satellite-based Emergency Health Care Steps Up
Portable satellite-based telemedicine systems could be set up just outside the hot zone to support health care delivery for victims of an attack. "This concept highlights the importance of satellite communications for homeland security purposes," says Mike Mastrangelo who heads Biodefense Communications, a Texas-based consulting firm. He served as Texas Health Alert Network Coordinator until 2003 and was former director of the Bioterrorism Response Support Division at the Texas Department of Health. "The problem that we are trying to address is: How can you possibly provide health care to an event with 100,000 victims? Satellite telemedicine systems would obviate the need to move a large number of physicians near the hot zone."
Responding to a large scale bioterrorism attack may also force responders to alter normal response protocols, Mastrangelo says. "As better response protocols are developed they need to be communicated to the public health and health care communities rapidly. I always referred to this as just-in-time training. Satellite technology is ideal for this delivery."
The First Responder Emergency Communications-Mobile system is an integrated mobile wireless data platform carried in a fully functional ambulance. The system, in use at the Saint Francis University Center of Excellence for Remote and Medically-Under-Served Areas in Pennsylvania, uses KVH Tracnet and Inmarsat solutions to provide live mobile videoconferencing and consultation among other services. The system, funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Naval Health Research Center, provides multiple video feeds from cameras installed in the back of the ambulance, a camera directly over the patient's head and outside the vehicle to allow for remote visual and voice monitoring of everything going on inside the ambulance as well as at the scene.
"The transmission of patient data, including electrocardiograms, vital signs and full-motion video, reduces the chance of losing contact with the medical command physician," says Vicki Pendleton, telehealth development specialist at the center. "In addition to data transmission, this platform also provides mobile Internet connectivity and conventional two-way audio. The mobile satellite solution works very well even at higher highway speeds. This permits continuous connection, if needed, with the care center during transport of the critically ill or injured patients."
While the two communication systems may have an impact on future emergency medical operations and procedures, there are systems in use today that may also have an impact. In April, the Connecticut Department of Public Health activated its new Medsat redundant voice-only emergency communications network, which has been installed in all of the state's acute care hospitals as well as at its Emergency Command Center and other sites. The system made its debut in a homeland security exercise.
"Medsat's anticipated role was to provide the state's hospitals with drill specific information at regularly scheduled intervals," says Department of Public Health spokesman David Hunt. "Instead, Medsat--an Ottawa-based Mobile Satellite Ventures LP solution--was heavily involved in conveying requests for additional equipment and receiving information from the hospitals about the number of patients arriving, their status and whether they were going through decontamination, being admitted to ICU, etc." The system help public health staff and hospitals perform more than 100 communications during the first day of the drill without any problems, he says.
Mississippi and Kentucky deployed similar satellite-based solutions for their respective departments of health, while emergency management and disaster response officials in states like Washington, Virginia and Georgia also are embracing this approach.
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