Volume 5, Number 3 May/June 1997
Telemedicine
NTOLD DISCOVERIES WILL BE MADE
as a result of planetary exploration as we enter the 21st century. Humans traveling to Mars
will require systems that provide for autonomous operation. These systems will have to be able
to support the astronauts' every need, including medical care delivery.
NASA must adapt and/or develop appropriate technologies in medical informatics, smart medical and environmental sensors, decision support systems, image compression, new teaching aides, holography, virtual environments and noninvasive procedures. Information technologies will enhance on-board training so the crew medical officer and the crew engineer both can maintain their skills in many diverse areas.
These kinds of technologies will provide an opportunity for the crew medical officer to obtain vital information about crew members' physiological status without using invasive procedures. The ability to analyze blood without obtaining a blood sample has tremendous benefit in space flight and an even greater benefit on Earth. It reduces the consumables that need to be taken to orbit, and no reason would exist to return samples to Earth for postflight analysis. Similar technology also would benefit environmental sampling.
The development of these technologies will revolutionize medical practice. Telemedicine technologies used in the space program will be adapted to terrestrial medical practice, so the doctor may visit the patient much as he or she did in the 19th century. The exception, of course, is the doctor will have 21st-century technologies in his or her black bag.
Telemedicine on the Internet and access to health information will be commonplace by the year 2000. Today, people from all walks of life have access to more information than ever before because of the Internet. At the direction of Vice President Al Gore, several federal agencies, including NASA, are collaborating on the development of Next Generation Internet (NGI), an infrastructure that allows information to flow much faster than is now possible.
The technologies NASA is exploring today will be necessary to medical education and medical care in the future and serve as a foundation for fundamental change in the practice of medicine. The emergence of these technologies will further eliminate barriers to quality health care.
NASA will continue to share its knowledge, so as the Agency proceeds with its space exploration mission, we might better understand life's processes and how we might enhance quality of life.
For more information, contact Charles Doarn at NASA Headquarters.
Call 202/358-0821,
Fax: 202/358-3038,
E-mail: cdoarn@hq.nasa.gov
Please mention you read about it in Innovation.
