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Medical Data Architecture Project Status

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current in-flight medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are a variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable a more medically autonomous crew than the current paradigm. The medical system requirements are being developed in parallel with the exploration mission architecture and vehicle design. ExMC has recognized that in order to make informed decisions about a medical data architecture framework, current methods for medical data management must not only be understood, but an architecture must also be identified that provides the crew with actionable insight to medical conditions. This medical data architecture will provide the necessary functionality to address the challenges of executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support. Hence, the products supported by current prototype development will directly inform exploration medical system requirements.

medical data architecture↗

Medical Data Architecture (MDA) Project Status

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current in-flight medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are a variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable a more medically autonomous crew than the current paradigm. The medical system requirements are being developed in parallel with the exploration mission architecture and vehicle design. ExMC has recognized that in order to make informed decisions about a medical data architecture framework, current methods for medical data management must not only be understood, but an architecture must also be identified that provides the crew with actionable insight to medical conditions. This medical data architecture will provide the necessary functionality to address the challenges of executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support. Hence, the products supported by current prototype development will directly inform exploration medical system requirements.

medical data architecture↗

Medical Data Architecture Project Status

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current International Space Station (ISS) medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable an increasingly autonomous crew than the current ISS paradigm. The MDA will develop capabilities that support automated data collection, and the necessary functionality and challenges in executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support.To attain this goal, the first year of the MDA project focused on reducing technical risk, developing documentation and instituting iterative development processes that established the basis for the first version of MDA software (or Test Bed 1). Test Bed 1 is based on a nominal operations scenario authored by the ExMC Element Scientist. This narrative was decomposed into a Concept of Operations that formed the basis for Test Bed 1 requirements. These requirements were successfully vetted through the MDA Test Bed 1 System Requirements Review, which permitted the MDA project to begin software code development and component integration. This paper highlights the MDA objectives, development processes, and accomplishments, and identifies the fiscal year 2017 milestones and deliverables in the upcoming year.

Exploration medical system↗

Medical Data Architecture (MDA) Project Status

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current in-flight medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are a variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable a more medically autonomous crew than the current paradigm. The medical system requirements are being developed in parallel with the exploration mission architecture and vehicle design. ExMC has recognized that in order to make informed decisions about a medical data architecture framework, current methods for medical data management must not only be understood, but an architecture must also be identified that provides the crew with actionable insight to medical conditions. This medical data architecture will provide the necessary functionality to address the challenges of executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support. Hence, the products supported by current prototype development will directly inform exploration medical system requirements.In fiscal year 2018, the MDA project developed Test Bed 2, the second iteration in a series of prototypes with functionality focused on data security through role-based access control and encryption, integration with One Portal exercise software and ingestion of an ultrasound Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) file and image display. Test Bed 2 advances the medical data system architecture framework by providing these functionalities in a scalable system that maintained a layered, modular design. The architecture framework uses a data services approach with role-based access to data in a customized medical record system suitable for space exploration. These functionalities were demonstrated as part of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) ground test demonstrated at the NASA Johnson Space Center Integrated Power, Avionics and Software (iPAS) facility. Interfacing to a Core Flight Software (CFS) system, the MDA system, using Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) protocol, transferred an exercise file from the simulated flight MDA system to a mirrored MDA system on the ground through the CFS system. The selection of data sources and demonstrations enabled the team to address stakeholder concerns throughout the development process. In the next iteration, the MDA team will work with stakeholders to identify additional relevant functionalities to further advance system data models, standards and principles that will inform the medical system requirements development.

medical data architecture↗

Patient rooms transition: Contemporary makes way for the future

Recent advances in lighting research, technology and control systems are creating new opportunities to use lighting in healthcare facilities, particularly patient rooms, to improve everyday experiences for patients, visitors and staff. Healthcare facilities design has undergone shifts in thinking over the past 50 years, including the incorporation of more technology, and moving from an institutional appearance to a residential appearance, with biophilic elements. The Facilities Guidelines Institute defines the term environment of care as “those physical environment features in a health care facility that are created, structured, and maintained to support and enhance the delivery of health care”. Many attributes of the environment of care in existing hospital patient rooms, especially those built prior to 1990, reflect a focus on maximizing the efficiency of delivering medical care, sometimes without much attention to the impact of design on the experience of patients and guests.

Davis, Robert G.↗

STARPAHC Interim Evaluation Report, May 1975 - April 1976

The primary goals of the STARPAHC Program are to provide data for developing health care for future manned spacecraft, and to establish the feasibility of the STARPAHC concept for improving the delivery of health care to remote areas on earth. Accordingly, the hardware and medical evaluations initiated during the first 6 months of system operation were continued and expanded during the second 6-month period. The evaluations are based on what has proven to be a relatively stabilized 6-month period wherein system failures which occurred during the initial shakedown period in the first 6 months have been minimized. Early trends and performance data reported in the first semi-annual report were reexamined to either verify, modify or change earlier conclusions. The highlights are given of the total year of operation with emphasis on comparisons between the first and second semi-annual reporting period. In addition, an early analysis of costs is summarized.

Source record↗

Innovative Technologies for Efficient Pharmacotherapeutic Management in Space

Current and future Space exploration missions and extended human presence in space aboard the ISS will expose crew to risks that differ both quantitatively and qualitatively from those encountered before by space travelers and will impose an unknown risk of safety and crew health. The technology development challenges for optimizing therapeutics in space must include the development of pharmaceuticals with extended stability, optimal efficacy and bioavailability with minimal toxicity and side effects. Innovative technology development goals may include sustained/chronic delivery preventive health care products and vaccines, low-cost high‐efficiency noninvasive, non‐oral dosage forms with radio‐protective formulation matrices and dispensing technologies coupled with self‐reliant tracking technologies for quality assurance and quality control assessment. These revolutionary advances in pharmaceutical technology will assure human presence in space and healthy living on Earth. Additionally, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations advocates the use of health information technologies to effectively execute all aspects of medication management (prescribing, dispensing, and administration). The advent of personalized medicine and highly streamlined treatment regimens stimulated interest in new technologies for medication management. Intelligent monitoring devices enhance medication accountability compliance, enable effective drug use, and offer appropriate storage and security conditions for dangerous drug and controlled substance medications in remote sites where traditional pharmacies are unavailable. These features are ideal for Exploration Medical Capabilities. This presentation will highlight current novel commercial off‐the‐shelf (COTS) intelligent medication management devices for the unique dispensing, therapeutic drug monitoring, medication tracking, and drug delivery demands of exploration space medical operations.

Putcha, Lakshmi↗

Public service communications satellite

Health, education, public safety, and information transfer applications of public service communications satellites are discussed with particular attention to the use of communications satellites to improve rural health delivery. Health-care communications requirements are summarized. The communications system concept involves small inexpensive stationary, portable, and moving ground terminals which will provide communications between any two points in the U.S. with both fixed and moving terminals on a continuous 24-hour basis. User requirements, wavebands, and privacy techniques are surveyed.

Wolff, E. A.↗

Biomedical engineering - A means to add new dimension to medicine and research

Biomedical engineering is an evolving science that seeks to insert technically oriented and trained personnel to assist medical professionals in solving technological problems in the pursuit of innovations in the delivery of health care. Consequently, engineering solutions are brought to bear on problems that previously were outside the training of physicians and beyond the understanding or appreciation of the conventionally educated electrical or mechanical engineers. This physician/scientist/engineer team has a capability to extend medicine and research far beyond the capability of a single entity operating alone. How biomedical engineering has added a new dimension to medical science at the Kennedy Space Center is described.

Doerr, D. F.↗

Commercial applications of telemedicine

Telemedicine Systems Corporation was established in 1976 and is a private commercial supplier of telemedicine systems. These systems are various combinations of communications and diagnostic technology, designed to allow the delivery of health care services to remote facilities. The technology and the health care services are paid for by the remote facilities, such as prisons.

Natiello, Thomas A.↗

TRC research products: Components for service robots

Transitions Research Corporation has developed a variety of technologies to accomplish its central mission: the creation of commercially viable robots for the service industry. Collectively, these technologies comprise the TRC 'robot tool kit.' The company started by developing a robot base that serves as a foundation for mobile robot research and development, both within TRC and at customer sites around the world. A diverse collection of sensing techniques evolved more recently, many of which have been made available to the international mobile robot research community as commercial products. These 'tool-kit' research products are described in this paper. The largest component of TRC's commercial operation is a product called HelpMate for material transport and delivery in health care institutions.

Lob, W. Stuart↗

Quantitative 3-D imaging topogrammetry for telemedicine applications

The technology to reliably transmit high-resolution visual imagery over short to medium distances in real time has led to the serious considerations of the use of telemedicine, telepresence, and telerobotics in the delivery of health care. These concepts may involve, and evolve toward: consultation from remote expert teaching centers; diagnosis; triage; real-time remote advice to the surgeon; and real-time remote surgical instrument manipulation (telerobotics with virtual reality). Further extrapolation leads to teledesign and telereplication of spare surgical parts through quantitative teleimaging of 3-D surfaces tied to CAD/CAM devices and an artificially intelligent archival data base of 'normal' shapes. The ability to generate 'topogrames' or 3-D surface numerical tables of coordinate values capable of creating computer-generated virtual holographic-like displays, machine part replication, and statistical diagnostic shape assessment is critical to the progression of telemedicine. Any virtual reality simulation will remain in 'video-game' realm until realistic dimensional and spatial relational inputs from real measurements in vivo during surgeries are added to an ever-growing statistical data archive. The challenges of managing and interpreting this 3-D data base, which would include radiographic and surface quantitative data, are considerable. As technology drives toward dynamic and continuous 3-D surface measurements, presenting millions of X, Y, Z data points per second of flexing, stretching, moving human organs, the knowledge base and interpretive capabilities of 'brilliant robots' to work as a surgeon's tireless assistants becomes imaginable. The brilliant robot would 'see' what the surgeon sees--and more, for the robot could quantify its 3-D sensing and would 'see' in a wider spectral range than humans, and could zoom its 'eyes' from the macro world to long-distance microscopy. Unerring robot hands could rapidly perform machine-aided suturing with precision micro-sewing machines, splice neural connections with laser welds, micro-bore through constricted vessels, and computer combine ultrasound, microradiography, and 3-D mini-borescopes to quickly assess and trace vascular problems in situ. The spatial relationships between organs, robotic arms, and end-effector diagnostic, manipulative, and surgical instruments would be constantly monitored by the robot 'brain' using inputs from its multiple 3-D quantitative 'eyes' remote sensing, as well as by contact and proximity force measuring devices. Methods to create accurate and quantitative 3-D topograms at continuous video data rates are described.

Altschuler, Bruce R.↗

Satellite broadcasting - Capabilities for public service

Satellite broadcast services to support health-care and educational transmissions must work with small, low-cost terminals in allocated radio-frequency bands. The ATS-6 spacecraft has successfully demonstrated such capability in the bands of non-technical users. It supports interactive television broadcasting to simple, low-cost terminals in a nationwide series of experiments in the delivery of health-care and educational services. ATS-6 achieves this capability with a very large antenna and moderate transmitter power. The coverage limitations inherent in this approach will be overcome by the joint U.S.-Canadian Communications Technology Satellite to be launched in December 1975. The CTS will demonstrate broadcast capability with new, high-power technology in a newly-allocated radio-frequency band. This will make it possible to use smaller antennas, greatly enlarging the area coverage available to the many nontechnical experimenters using CTS for their own needs. A practical application of these technologies is now in development for operational broadcasting services in Japan.

Marsten, R. B.↗

STARPAHC - Operational findings

Delivery of quality health care to passengers of extended-mission spacecraft and to remote populations on earth (a major national problem) requires extending the knowledge and skills of the physician many kilometers distant from his physical location. The STARPAHC telemedicine system accomplishes this by using physician's assistants complemented with space technology in communications, data handling, and systems engineering. It is presently in operation and undergoing a 2-year evaluation on the Papago Indian Reservation, Arizona. Results have established its feasibility as a solution for remote area health care on earth, while providing information useful to the planners of advanced manned spacecraft missions.

Belasco, N.↗

NASA spinoffs to bioengineering and medicine

Through the active transfer of technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technology Utilization (TU) Program assists private companies, associations, and government agencies to make effective use of NASA's technological resources to improve U.S. economic competitiveness and to provide societal benefit. Aerospace technology from areas such as digital image processing, space medicine and biology, microelectronics, optics and electrooptics, and ultrasonic imaging have found many secondary applications in medicine. Examples of technology spinoffs are briefly discussed to illustrate the benefits realized through adaptation of aerospace technology to solve health care problems. Successful implementation of new technologies increasingly requires the collaboration of industry, universities, and government, and the TU Program serves as the liaison to establish such collaborations with NASA. NASA technology is an important resource to support the development of new medical products and techniques that will further advance the quality of health care available in the U.S. and worldwide.

Biomedical Engineering/instrumentation/trends↗

Some approaches to medical support for Martian expedition

Medical support in a Martian expedition will be within the scope of crew responsibilities and maximally autonomous. Requirements to the system of diagnostics in this mission include considerable use of means and methods of visualization of the main physiological parameters, telemedicine, broad usage of biochemical analyses (including "dry" chemistry), computerized collection, measurement, analysis and storage of medical information. The countermeasure system will be based on objective methods of crew fitness and working ability evaluation, individual selection of training regimens, and intensive use of computer controlled training. Implementation of the above principles implies modernization and refinement of the countermeasures currently used by space crews of long-term missions (LTM), and increases of the assortment of active and passive training devices, among them a short-arm centrifuge. The system of medical care with the functions of prevention, clinical diagnostics and timely treatment will be autonomous, too. The general requirements to medical care during the future mission are the following: availability of conditions and means for autonomous urgent and special medical aid and treatment of the most possible states and diseases, "a hospital", and assignment to the crew of one or two doctors. To ensure independence of medical support and medical care in an expedition to Mars an automated expert system needs to be designed and constructed to control the medical situation as a whole. c2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.

Mars↗

Advances in Nanotechnology for Efficacious and Stable Formulation Development

Current operational medical kits aboard the International Space Station (ISS) include an array of medications intended for the treatment of minor ambulatory care symptoms, first aid, and basic life support. All medications contained in the flight kits are commercially available off-the-shelf formulations used for treatment of illnesses on Earth. However, transport and stowage of supplies including medications for space missions are exposed to adverse environmental conditions and extended shelf-life demands. Proposed missions to Mars and near-Earth objects such as asteroid 1999 AO10 will present crew health risk that is different both quantitatively and qualitatively from those encountered on ISS missions. Few drug options are available at the present time for mitigation of crew health risk of planned space exploration missions. Alternatives to standard oral formulations that include sustained and targeted delivery technologies for preventive healthcare in space will be a welcome addition to the space formulary and may include controlled release topical, sub-cutaneous, intranasal and inhalation dosage forms. An example of such a technology development endeavor can be nanotechnology-based multi-stage drug cocktail and vaccine delivery systems. Nanostructures also have the ability to protect drugs encapsulated within them from physiologic degradation, target their delivery with sustained release and are suitable for per oral routes of administration. The use of nanostructures such as polymeric nanoparticles offers a non-invasive approach for penetrating the blood brain barrier. Finally, nanotechnology offers great potential for the development of safe and efficacious drug delivery systems for preventive health care in space and on Earth.

Putcha, Lakshimi↗

Use of communications

Progress in the field of satellite communications is reviewed, and useful services which may be provided by future satellite communications systems are considered. Recommendations are made with regard to mobile communications for use on land and at sea, position determination, mineral and energy exploration, the possibility of using electronic means to assist in main delivery, education and health-care experiments, and the use of satellite telecommunications to enhance the quality of life in rural areas by making available a full range of educational and entertainment programs. The needs of the amateur radio community are also considered.

Source record↗