By
Jennifer Larson, NurseZone feature writer
As the war in Iraq
escalates, the U.S. military is fortunate to have an array of medical
resources that did not exist during the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s.
The military is now
using state-of-the-art telemedicine systems, including one that may give injured soldiers
on the front line a better shot at recovery.
In recent decades,
medical advances have allowed military doctors, nurses and corpsmen to provide
increasingly better care in hospitals, but few advances were achieved when it came to
treating the wounded on the battleground.
Now the military is
working on ways to treat injured soldiers during the “golden hour” after they are
wounded, Federal Computer Week magazine reported March 20.
During a March 13
press briefing, Navy Rear Adm. John Mateczun, M.D., noted that the military has a vested
interest in preventing injury to its soldiers and to caring for the wounded as quickly and
efficiently as possible.
One component of
that strategy involves a portable telecommunications system that connects the field
hospitals on the front lines with larger medical facilities complete with a full range of
resources. The field medics can communicate directly with other medical personnel, even
sending X-rays for consults.
As Federal Computer
Week reported, GTSI Corp. put the system into four heavy cases, and the military deployed
two to troops stationed in the Persian Gulf area.
The portable system
supports “forward surgery,” surgical procedures performed immediately after a soldier
is wounded in the field. According to Mateczun, forward surgery is very successful in saving more lives because it provides life-saving care earlier, when every second is crucial.
Eventually, civilian
hospitals may also benefit from the technology just deployed by the military.
“There is a fair
amount that is applicable to domestic uses,” said Jonathan Linkous, executive director
of the American Telemedicine Association.
In fact, the
military is often the first to use new health care technology that eventually finds its
way into the civilian setting.
“There’s a lot
of work going on in the military for telemedicine,” Linkous noted. “The military is
the largest spender…on research and development for telemedicine because it’s very
important for them.”
Civilian medicine
will benefit in another way, too. The new technology is researched and tested by the
military first and that saves money for non-military hospitals and facilities. However,
civilian hospital officials still have to determine the best way to integrate the new
technology into their existing systems—and how to pay for it.
“There’s a lot
of technical and money issues that go beyond whether the technology is neat or just can be
done,” Linkous said.
The U.S. military
may eventually begin using some other new products to save the lives of injured soldiers
in the field. Several companies are developing high-tech bandages designed to be more
effective in staunching the flow of blood from a wound than traditional bandages.
The Army has
conducted research on one such bandage that is made of a very absorbent substances called
chitosan. Chitosan is a polysaccharide derived from the exoskeletons of animals such as
shrimp and it encourages rapid clotting, which could mean the difference between life or
death for a soldier with a bleeding wound. Another device in development for battlefield
use is the Biohemostat, a small, flat pouch made of a polymer that is designed to expand
inside a wound and absorb blood. According to Marcus Carr, M.D., one of the device’s
creators, this device would not cause the nerve damage that can be caused by a tourniquet,
which is a standard piece of equipment used in reducing blood flow.
Such devices could
eventually end up in use in the civilian health care setting, too, in urban trauma
facilities where doctors and nurses often face patients with massive blood loss from
gunshot wounds or car accidents.
©
2003. AMN Healthcare, Inc. All Rights Reserved.