ARMY AL&T
DIALING UP CRITICAL CARE
NETCCN promises to bring high-quality care to patients, digitally.
by Ramin A. Khalili I
f you know Matthew Quinn, the new science director at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Develop- ment Command’s (USAMRDC) Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC),
then you know that technology—emerging concepts, prac- tical uses and all of its endless possibilities—is in his blood. A former Army officer and engineer turned Silicon Valley executive, Quinn has, in many ways, spent his entire profes- sional life looking for the so-called “next big thing” in technology. Now, upon his return to federal service, he may have just found it.
“Tis is a really powerful project,” said Quinn of TATRC’s newest brainchild, the National Emergency Telecritical Care Network (NETCCN)—the premise of which orig- inated in part with Col. Jeremy Pamplin, the center’s director and a critical care physician. “Tere is an imme- diate need for these kinds of capabilities.”
In simple terms, NETCCN sits at the intersection of the kind of military medical care required to support the austere environments likely to be found during multido- main operations and the rapid growth of digital health technologies and telehealth opportunities that are becom- ing pervasive in the civilian world. In essence, by applying the vast technical and clinical knowledge found in both realms, the center hopes to build NETCCN into a new digital health system that will revolutionize overall care for patients during disasters and, possibly, more broadly as
well. In more detailed terms, NETCCN is a cloud-based, low-resource, stand-alone health information manage- ment system with the capability of creating innumerable “virtual critical care wards” to bring high-quality care capa- bility—via current handheld mobile devices—to nearly every bedside in the country.
It is, in many ways, a substantial undertaking.
“It’s not just a technology thing,” said Quinn, the former tech-sector executive now coordinating NETCCN’s devel- opment from his home office during the pandemic. “Tis is clinicians working with technologists on a brand new care model.”
Tat Quinn would be working from home (like many of his colleagues, of course) during the coronavirus outbreak is somewhat ironic given the catalyst for NETCCN is the novel coronavirus itself. Disasters of any kind notably stress health care infrastructure and staff, as there are simply not enough qualified clinicians to provide care during large- scale emergencies. And while many health systems across the country already have existing digital models of care for smaller, more localized emergencies (think telehealth consultations for victims of car crashes or stroke), the team at TATRC initiated the NETCCN effort by asking those same health systems, along with clinicians affiliated with the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM), how they would refine those models for the current pandemic.
https://asc.ar my.mil 83
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