SatelliteS contriBute to iMproVed
readineSS oVerall
By Peter J. Brown
the lessons of recent natural
disasters around the globe are
not likely to be forgotten soon,
and people need to be reassured that in
the event of any large-scale natural or
man-made disaster, adequate medical
resources and a well-coordinated cadre
of personnel will be on scene rapidly. in
part due to difficulties in the wake of
some of these disasters, there is a growing recognition of the importance of satellite technology in supporting any surge
medical response component.
the U.S. department of Health and
Human Services preparedness and
emergency operations office is the medical response arm of the federal government, although its relies on other agencies
for the primary response, says dr. Kevin
Yeskey, the office’s acting director. U.S.
northern Command and national Guard
civil support teams on scene and all federal government mass casualty medical
response teams have access to any mobile
and portable or modular satellite assets
under the control of local agencies, their
own satellite communications equipment
and those operated by the U.S. Federal
emergency management agency (Fema),
such as the mobile emergency response
Support and mobile air transportable
telecommunications System. the
emergency operations office also has satellite phones that can be deployed for use
by senior officials and incident response
coordination teams.
the emergency operations office operates
under the Health and Human Services office
of the assistant Secretary for preparedness
and response (aSpr), which was created
when Congress passed the pandemic and
all-Hazards preparedness act in december.
Congress approved more than $800 million
to fund public health preparedness, emergency medical response and other programs.
aSpr also includes the national disaster
medical System and the national Hospital
Bioterrorism preparedness program.
in addition, at the U.S. department
of defense, the office of Force Health
protection and readiness, the U.S.
army medical Command and the army
telemedicine and advanced technology
research Center are looking to enhance
the role of satellite in everything from
collecting patient data to managing
and communicating medical information and performing robotic surgery.
Satellite links support the telemedicine
and advanced technology research
Photos courtesy of Medweb.
The satellite-equipped Mobile Telemedicine Vehicle is operated by Loma Linda University Medical Center
and supported the Battlefield Medical Information System Tactical during the Strong Angel 3 disaster relief
exercise conducted in summer 2006 in California.
Fema also sustains a large supply of
communications equipment, known as the
national Cache, for tactical communications
support during a disaster, says a Fema spokeswoman, the equipment, also available to state
and local entities, includes 400 iridium and
260 inmarsat m- 4 satellite phones as well as
with 300 inmarsat Broadband Global area
network terminals in addition to a large quantity of motorola UHF handheld radios and several portable QualComm cellular systems.
Center’s Special medical augmentation
response team medical Command
Control Communications-telemedicine
kit, for example, and enable other forms
of remote battlefield telemedicine
including a wireless pda known
as the Battlefield medical information
System tactical. during the Strong
angel 3 disaster relief exercise conducted in summer 2006 in California,
the satellite-equipped loma linda
