Telemedicine Reaches Far and Wide

摘要

On the battlefield of the future, a U.S. Army sol-dier is hit by shrapnel from an artillery round and is rendered unconscious with internal injuries to his torso. He is alone and no one witnesses his injury, but the intelligent agents in his automated self-monitoring system detect that he is in crisis, and the system transmits a signal to a regional command center. Officers at the command center dispatch an unmanned rescue vehicle, which enters the live-fire zone and deploys small robots to collect him carefully for removal from the hot zone. The soldier receives emergency care on the unmanned rescue vehicle, where he is placed on a life-support trauma and transport platform. It provides oxygen and pain control as diagnosed by microelec-tromechanical sensors and automated systems. He is transported in this personal intensive care capsule ― by unmanned heli- copter, if necessary ― to a surgical center established near the front, where he can receive medical attention quickly. By the time he arrives at the center, a computer has combined personal data from his metabolic monitoring chip with information from multiple automated diagnostic instruments that use noninvasive procedures to provide an accurate assessment of his life-threatening condition.