SBIR-STTR Award

The Department of Defense recognizes a serious void in remote operational health care management and is searching for solutions to pressing medical readiness issues. New threats and new operational environments combined with a rapidly changing scientific database and scarce medical resources accelerate the demand for new tools and methods to enhance and strengthen remote medical management capabilties. Specifically, tools that distribute knowledge and capabilities to aid a range of first-responders in comprehensively evaluating a medical situation, guide the uniform collection and reporting of critical information, and provide a telemedicine clinical reach-back to medical experts are essential components of today's medical preparedness and response plans. The objective of this Phase 1 proposal is to design a framework for the development of a distributive, deployable, protocol-driven, training system with integrated telemedicine capabilities that will enhance and streamline the assessment and management of remote medical situations across military and civilian environments. Ultimately, the creation of this type of system could enhance the transfer of remote clinical and logistical information, expedite appropriate medical intervention, significantly leverage available medical resources and knowledge, reduce mortality, morbidity and the incidence of medical errors and reduce long-term injury related disabilities through rapid remote management of medical conditions. Potential

Benefits:
Ultimately, the creation of this type of system could enhance the transfer of remote clinical and logistical information, expedite appropriate medical intervention, significantly leverage available medical resources and knowledge, reduce mortality, morbidity and the incidence of medical errors and reduce long-term injury related disabilities through rapid remote management of medical conditions. Commercial Applications: It is now quite clear that the majority of continuing educational requirements for the healthcare provider (physician, nurse, medic etc.) will be done on a "just-in-time" basis both at the "point-of-care" and at the patient location (home or battlefield) utilizing wireless telecommunications infrastructure. Given this new process of care delivery it is apparent that the most critical resource will be the availability of evidence-based content and diagnostic treatment protocols provided over the distributed network infrastructure. The process for protocol development and the design of an infrastructure to support protocol distribution, represented in this proposal, will therefore have tremendous market potential

Medical readiness has become a critical concern. New threats and operational environments, an expanding set of critical skills and scarce resources has made the development of new training tools and operational methods for our first-responders a high-priority in both military and civilian communities. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is actively searching for solutions to these pressing medical readiness issues. Tools that provide training, distribute knowledge, collect and report critical information, and provide real-time support are currently being developed. These efforts are being funded by/from a variety of sources, public and private, and are being developed in an independent manner, lacking an established architecture to integrate knowledge and capabilities. The goal of the Distributed Medical Curricula Architecture (DMCA) is to provide a foundation to integrate many of these efforts - particularly efforts focused on first-responder training. Designs and implements a modern architecture that will enhance the Uniformed Services training mission. Provides an enhanced ability to interact, collaborate, integrate and jointly develop, plan and deliver first-responder training in a unifying environment. Looking forward, such systems could even collect and provide information relative to first-responder manpower, levels, characteristics and distribution. Provides an environment that enables and supports the development and implementation of a Core Curriculum for medical and non-medical first- responders that can be dynamically updated based on evidence-based practices. Provides a continuous assessment method to determine an individual first-responder's state of readiness. Dual-use technology

Keywords:
first responder, medical, training, telemedicine, web services architecture, medical protocols, knowledge management