FH-3 Tests Patient Tracking System In Iraq
Navy Newsstand
Story Number: NNS030523-06
Release Date: 5/24/2003 10:14:00 PM
By Doris Ryan, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery
SOUTHERN IRAQ (NNS) -- Fleet Hospital (FH) 3 is testing a unique patient tracking system developed by Navy researchers. The Tactical Medical Coordination System (TacMedCS) is a wireless communication network designed for field use that captures and displays real-time casualty data.
The system, originally designed for Fleet Marine Force (FMF) corpsmen to locate injured Marines during urban combat and document medical care, was reconfigured in record time to allow the fleet hospital to track patients moving through its facility.
The original TacMedCS includes three components: a wearable plastic tag with an embedded electronic chip to store individual medical information; a palm-sized scanner to electronically read and write to the chip, and a central server with a database and a digital map display of the operational areas.
With four years of research and multiple field trials during Marine Corps exercises to their credit, the research team from the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory, Pensacola, Fla., headed by Chief Hospital Corpsman Michael E. Stiney, already had the chips, scanners and server needed by FH-3. Instead of tags, the fleet hospital wanted patient wristbands, an easy task for the team and their civilian partners. The real obstacle was rewriting the software to capture the information the fleet hospital required.
"We were asked to modify the TacMedCS system and we did," said Stiney, a cardiovascular technologist and FMF corpsman. In just one week, the team deployed 800 wristbands, a wireless network complete with relays and antennas, a laptop with the database, five scanners and a server."
The point man for the test is Lt. David Everhart, nursing informatics officer with FH-3. Everhart explained how TacMedCS is being used at the fleet hospital.
The hospital receives patients primarily from forward surgical units and also serves as the "community hospital" for the region of operation. The patient administrative staff assembles charts for each patient, which includes a TacMedCS wristband. The casualty receiving corpsman scans the patient's wristband, injuries and treatments are documented, and the patient is then moved to one of the three wards, the Operating Room, or the Intensive Care Unit. Movement through the fleet hospital is recorded and tracked by scanning the wristband. When the patient leaves the fleet hospital the final disposition is electronically written to the wristband.
FH-3 is a 500-bed level three facility with modular capability. For Operation Iraqi Freedom, the facility was configured to a 116-bed expeditionary medical facility that included a casualty receiving unit, an operating room, three inpatient wards, and an intensive care unit. Ancillary services included laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy suites.
"From a beta test standpoint, I feel that this has been very successful. Although we experienced some software problems initially, we have the system in place and working as anticipated. As a real-time patient-tracking device, TacMedCS has proven it's worth. The technology has enormous potential in my opinion. As these data travel with the patient, an entire medical history could be assembled and stored on the wristband," Everhart added.
What is the next step? According to Stiney, "We are going to capitalize on the lessons learned from this experience. This is not a 100 percent completed system yet, so we are going to take the information gathered by all the users over there and fine-tune the system to create a better product. I think we will have a final product ready in a year. TacMedCS will be adaptable to requirements: preventive medicine, trauma treatment, casualty evacuation, and humanitarian assistance. Whatever Navy Medicine's requirements are, we will deliver."
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