Augmenting Clinical Performance in Combat Casualty Care: Telemedicine to Automation

摘要

Emerging efforts in information science offer the possibility for clinicians to better utilize computer technology to decrease cognitive load, enhance decision making, and, improve patient outcomes. Recent natural disasters and mass casualty events across the United States and abroad spotlight the challenges of delivering healthcare in austere contexts. Austerity is a situation defined by limited resources of some or all of the following: equipment, medicines, diagnostics, personnel, knowledge, training, skills, and expertise. It is in this context that the military is focusing efforts to develop new telemedical, autonomous, and robotic systems to support local caregivers. Military humancomputer models that support telemedicine and autonomous care in austere environments may help shape similar civilian healthcare solutions in similarly austere contexts of remoteness, natural disaster, and mass casualty. This paper will discuss the clinical challenges and capability gaps of providing comprehensive medical support in this context and some of the tools the military is developing to address them.