In the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center continues to develop technology that increases medical capabilities and provides rapid, flexible critical care expertise at the point of need.

The U.S. military has seen a surge in the use of virtual medical care, as patients avoid doctor’s offices and health care workers work to minimize their exposure to the coronavirus.

The Defense Health Agency long planned to expand its use of telemedicine, which could include everything from a nurse displaying an X-ray of a soldier’s broken foot and discussing rehabilitation, to doctors in different countries diagnosing cancer.

Operational medicine performed by deployed military medical personnel has always driven innovation, and this was more important than ever in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Army is examining ways to use autonomous vehicles to bring injured soldiers off the battlefield.

In September, Pennsylvania-based company RE2 Robotics received $1.1 million in Small Business Innovation Research funding from the Army Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center to work on a dexterous two-arm system called the Autonomous Casualty Extraction, or ACE.

Kathlyn Chassey was shocked when she was diagnosed with COVID-19 after experiencing a low-grade fever and a bad headache.

A former lung transplant recipient, Chassey had been staying close to home for months to avoid the respiratory risks associated with the virus. She figured she had an infection or the flu when she arrived at Brooke Army Medical Center’s Emergency Department at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston in Texas.

TATRC is pleased to announce the arrival of Mr. Sunday Bitrus, who has joined the TATRC team as a new Senior Technical Advisor. In this role, he will support lab leaders in planning, conducting and overseeing research, provision of technical assistance, and perform program project reviews.

Many things changed when COVID-19 hit and the lockdowns began in March 2020. The majority of us began working from home, which meant living much of our lives on Teams, Zoom calls, and other virtual meeting platforms.

The National Tele-critical Care Network (NETCCN) project is one of TATRC’s primary initiatives in response to COVID-19. As previously reported in the TATRC Times, this project was established as a novel means to provide remote, expert care to locations that were overwhelmed providing COVID care.

Normally the month of December finds the TATRC team celebrating the festivities of the season, munching on cookies, and “making spirits bright” in person. While the COVID pandemic didn’t allow us to gather for our annual Holiday bash the “normal” way, we didn’t allow it to steal our joy.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland (Dec. 10, 2020) – Maj. Steven S. Hong, M.D. was awarded the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (AMSUS) Individual Professional Physician Award at the Virtual AMSUS Annual Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, held Dec. 6-10.

To better prepare for a COVID-19 surge, the Army’s Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) in April issued a call for a National Emergency Tele-Critical Care Network, a set of cloud-based, low-resource, stand-alone health information management systems. NETCCN was designed to support the creation and coordination of virtual critical care wards that would allow health professionals to deliver high-quality critical care to bedsides of COVID-19 patients in field hospitals, small rural health care facilities and even gymnasiums.

2020 – What a year it has been!

To put it lightly, 2020 was a year of great change. Unexpected challenges, stress, and uncertainties crept into every aspect of our lives, disrupting and reshaping how we behave and interact as a society.

The TATRC Team had the opportunity to host MRDC’s Commanding General, BG Michael Talley this past July. BG Talley has started the tradition of “quarterly pop in visits” and continues making his way around the command, meeting staff and gaining insightful updates about all of the different research endeavors that each of his units are working on.

Everyone is hearing a lot about “Project Convergence” these days, but what does it actually mean? According to the Army Futures Command website, “Project Convergence is a campaign of learning to aggressively pursue an artificial intelligence and machine learning-enabled battlefield management system.

As described in last quarter’s TATRC Times Newsletter, TATRC’s National Emergency Tele-Critical Care Network project began in March, with a challenge from MRDC’s Commander: “What can TATRC do to address the COVID pandemic?”

TATRC was honored to host Ms. Thea Hofgesang, Director of the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) and members of USAMRAA’s Service Team 6, who are assigned to execute the contracting needs of TATRC, to present them with accolades and awards for their recent acquisition support.

To prepare for current and future waves of COVID-19, the U.S. Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center asked teams from across the country to compete to build a telehealth prototype that would provide adequate ICU capacity when cases surge. Of the 78 teams that competed, only nine were invited to complete a series of tasks designed to establish the feasibility of their prototypes.

I hope this message finds each of you and your loved ones safe and healthy. We remain at war with an invisible foe that has caused more death of our fellow citizens than the past nearly 20 years of conflict, more than Vietnam and the Korean War combined.

The USAMRDC and several of its affiliate labs were prominently featured in the Summer 2020 issue of Combat & Casualty Care Magazine.

Since joining TATRC in March, I have been immersed, mostly virtually, in The National Tele-Critical Care Network (NETCCN) project and other efforts to assist in defeating COVID.

TATRC Director COL Jeremy Pamplin received the Warning Order from MRDC Headquarters in early March: What can TATRC do to advance the fight against COVID-19?

This past April, TATRC, in collaboration with the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC), issued a Request for Project Proposals (RPP), and subsequently, nine awards for a new national tele-critical care program.

An old English proverb says, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” That never proved to be more true than now, while we witness our Nation striving to adapt and fight against the invisible enemy known as COVID-19.

COVID-19 has spread rapidly across the world, leaving despair and isolation as a feeling that many are trying to grow accustomed to. However, with all trials that Americans have faced, we have risen up and shown the world there are always helpers standing by, waiting to assist.

TATRC has launched a special addition to the TATRC.org website specifically dedicated to telemedicine as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic. This new TATRC COVID-19 Resource page is a clinically and technically curated reference tool for official COVID-19 specific guidance and websites; as well as a reference for emerging digital health and advanced medical technology research, focused on current trends, processes, and future directions.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, stories of selflessness, sacrifice, and coming together for the greater good have been told the world over. Here at TATRC, we’re privileged enough to be able to highlight just a few instances of our very own team members pitching in and going the extra mile to help out during a time when everyone could use an extra hand.

Tuesday, 23 June 2020 marked the end of an era as COL (R) Dr. Gary Reed Gilbert, TATRC’s renowned thought-leader, pioneer, and innovator known throughout the world of military medicine, said farewell and officially began a well-earned retirement!

As we all know and experienced first hand, life during the COVID-19 pandemic has been anything but normal. With multiple daily teleconferences, remote meetings, desktop VTC’s and overall disconnection becoming the norm, the ability to build and maintain connections became more important than ever.

If necessity and innovation are the driving forces behind invention, then the “COVID-19 Airway Management Isolation Chamber,” or CAMIC, is the perfect creation. The device, conceived, designed, built and tested by Military Health System and the Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) personnel, may be the answer to protecting healthcare workers from COVID-19 and other viruses during patient care.

A team of Army doctors may have found the answer to the personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages impacting health care workers who are on the front lines of the fight against the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).

A new device, called the COVID-19 Airway Management Isolation Chamber (CAMIC), is the brain-child of military doctors and researchers at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland, the Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington State, and the Fort Belvoir Army Community Hospital in Virginia, among other institutions.

U.S. Army modernization officials have figured out how to use the service's new experimental combat goggles to scan soldiers for fever during coronavirus screenings.

The Army is in the middle of testing prototypes of the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), a sophisticated set of googles based on Microsoft's HoloLens technology, that are designed to give soldiers a heads-up display.

BETHESDA, Maryland -- Army doctors working at hospitals within the Defense Health Agency have prototyped an isolation chamber that can be placed over the head and chest of patients diagnosed with COVID-19.

KILLEEN — In what started as an idea to incorporate a telehealth platform into regular health clinics has now become commonplace for Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center’s Killeen Medical Home and Harker Heights Medical Home during this period of social distancing.

LANDSTUHL, Germany -- From Periodic Health Assessments to in-depth to full examinations, the role of virtual health in terms of medical readiness across the military branches is apparent now more than ever.

What if health care professionals, instead of sending coronavirus victims to overcrowded, understaffed hospitals, could download an app, register their patients and have them admitted to a virtual ward in a temporary hospital where a teleconnected critical care team could monitor their progress via local sensors, wearables or mobile devices?

Not even COVID-19 could slow us down here at Team TATRC! In the wake of the Coronavirus, the entire organization went remote and “virtual” on 17 March, and completely shifted to telework due to statewide “stay-at-home” orders and social distancing guidelines. Understandably, these conditions have added some complexity to work life, not the least of which includes the quarterly Town Hall meetings held by Director COL Jeremy Pamplin.

Congratulations are in order as our dutiful and dedicated Deputy Director, LTC Justin Stewart, has been selected for COLONEL and is now LTC (P) Stewart! A board-certified, Internal Medicine Physician who completed his residency at Brooke Army Medical Center, and whose education includes a DO from the UNT Health Science Center--Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine and a MBA and MHA from Baylor University, LTC (P) Stewart has served...

Please join us in extending a very warm welcome to our newest addition to join TATRC’s Command and Leadership Team. Mr. Matt Quinn joins the Team as TATRC’s third Science Director! Mr. Quinn officially began his tenure with us in early March, and we are thrilled to have him on board!

Over the last 12 months, TATRC has been working closely with the Human Research Performance (HRP) team at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to explore ways in which our common goals to expand digital health capabilities for asynchronous prolonged field care can be achieved together through a research partnership.

TATRC was once again honored to attend and take part in one of our favorite simulation events of the entire calendar year! The 2020 International Meeting for Simulation in Healthcare (IMSH) took place 18-22 January, in sunny San Diego, CA and was another record breaking year for IMSH with over 4,100 attendees taking part in this unique event. As the world’s largest conference dedicated to healthcare simulation learning and research, this major event is always a keystone for TATRC.

Big news is on the horizon here at TATRC! The Team has been hard at work refocusing and creating a new path forward for TATRC that will better align itself to the recent restructuring that has happened across the entire DoD. With our organization now falling under the Army Futures Command, we wanted to adapt and reengineer our mission and the vision that TATRC will have for the future.

As COL Jeremy Pamplin, Director of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command's (USAMRDC) Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), took to the podium at the Ninth Annual Department of Defense State-of-the-Science Meeting on Blast-related Burn Injury Research on March 3, he pointed to a slide already posted on the projector – a battlefield image showing several Soldiers actively tending to a single, injured Soldier.

There is an African proverb that states, “It takes a village ...” This maxim also holds true for the holistic approach required for soldiers who are ready, lethal and able to meet the Army’s needs.

Initiatives from the Army’s SHARP, Ready and Resilient Directorate; the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s Holistic Health and Fitness Program; and the U.S. Army Futures Command’s Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team recognize the importance of a holistic approach to soldier lethality.