Volume 5, Number 3     May/June 1997

  Telemedicine

NASA and NTTC Partner With Telemedicine Industry

ASA IS WORKING DILIGENTLY to place its telemedicine technologies into the hands of U.S. business and industry. The Aerospace Medicine Division of the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and the Commercial Technology Division of the Office of Aeronautics and Space Transportation Technology (both at NASA Headquarters), the NASA Field Centers, the National Technology Transfer Center (NTTC) and the Regional Technology Transfer Centers (RTTCs) have worked together to plan and develop telemedicine technology transfer and commercialization initiatives using NASA-developed technologies.

NTTC supports this national initiative by collecting information from the Aerospace Medicine Division and each of the RTTCs and Field Centers to outline and coordinate all of NASA's telemedicine efforts for industry. NTTC began this effort in preparation for the Telemedicine Workshop it organized for NASA at Technology 2006. NTTC has disseminated this information through its NASA Telemedicine Technology Gateway at http://www.nttc.edu/telemed.html and through assisting 1,000 callers who requested NASA telemedicine information from NTTC's Gateway Services. NTTC also conducts technology assessment and commercialization reviews.

NTTC continues its work to bring NASA technologies to the telemedicine forefront through the following national telemedicine initiatives:

• Telemedicine in Prison Systems: NTTC, through the National Institute of Justice's Office of Law Enforcement Technology Commercialization, has joined with NASA's Lewis Research Center and the Ohio Correctional Technology Network to promote the application of NASA telemedicine technologies in prisons to provide cost-effective, safe, quality care to inmates.
• Telemedicine in the Mining Industry: NTTC and an Ohio Valley company are exploring opportunities to apply NASA telemedicine technologies to manage medical emergencies during a mine disaster.
• Telepreventive Medicine Project: NTTC, with NASA, actively participates in the activities of Global Health Network (GHNet), an alliance of health and telecommunications experts who are developing the health information structure for disease prevention in the 21st century.

NTTC also has advanced NASA telemedicine technologies in the Ohio Valley and tri-state region by:

• Establishing a regional working group with community hospitals, health maintenance organizations, and computer and telecommunications companies to assess the telemedicine needs of its generally rural region and to identify the adoption of NASA and other federal technologies to meet those needs
• Providing technical support from NASA scientists to a local hospital to establish a telemedicine network
• Working with Georgetown University Medical Center to leverage NASA telemedicine technologies into their telemedicine services, which include teleradiology, telepathology and telerenal dialysis

For more information, contact Shaik Mazharullah, M.D., at NTTC.
Call 800/678-6882, E-mail: smazharullah@nttc.edu
Please mention you read about it in Innovation.