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W4DPH > SAT 12.12.02 21:51l 88 Lines 4017 Bytes #999 (0) @ AMSAT
BID : ANS-342.09
Read: DB0FHN GUEST
Subj: ESA DEMONSTRATES SATELLITE DISASTER RESPONSE SYSTEM
Path: DB0FHN<DB0ZWI<DB0HOT<DB0MRW<DB0SON<DB0ERF<DB0FBB<DB0GOS<ON0AR<ON0AR<
WB0TAX<W4DPH
Sent: 021208/0110Z @:W4DPH.#TPA.FL.USA.NOAM #:35961 [CLW] FBB $:ANS-342.09
From: W4DPH@W4DPH.#TPA.FL.USA.NOAM
To : SAT@AMSAT
AMSAT News Service Bulletin 342.09 From AMSAT HQ
SILVER SPRING, MD. DECEMBER 8, 2002
To All RADIO AMATEURS
BID: $ANS-342.09
A major disaster struck southern Germany on Thursday 7 November, claiming
numerous victims and cutting the town of Ulm off from the rest of the world.
Except all the victims were actually actors and the 'disaster' was really
a pre-scripted event.
In reality, Ulm was the site of a full-scale trial of the new DELTASS
(Disaster Emergency Logistics Telemedicine Advanced Satellites System)
system, developed by a team lead by CNES for the European Space Agency
(ESA).
DELTASS uses both geostationary and low earth orbit communication satellites
enabling 'top-down' management of emergency workers dispersed across a
disaster zone, as well as letting medical experts located hundreds of
miles away carry out on-the-spot diagnoses of casualties.
Such a fail-safe communication system for emergency telemedicine greatly
multiplies the effectiveness of rescue workers within the affected area,
especially as existing communications networks might not have survived.
"A major accident does as much invisible as visible harm," said Francesco
Feliciani, DELTASS Project Manager at the European Space Agency. "Apart
from the damage to terrestrial communications infrastructure done by the
likes of an earthquake or floods, the first thing that becomes unavailable
is the cellular network, which quickly gets overloaded. We saw this in the
Toulouse chemical factory explosion last year."
Using DELTASS, search and rescue workers entering a disaster area to
identify
casualties carry PDAs and satellite phones to transmit details of the
victims,
opening 'electronic patient forms' that stay with casualties throughout
their
treatment process and can be progressively updated.
First aid and ambulance teams are equipped with Portable Telemedicine Work-
stations for two-way communication with medical experts at a nearby Medical
Field Hospital. Patient data such as ECGs and vital signs can be
transmitted
along with still images of injuries.
And at the hub of the DELTASS system is this Medical Field Hospital, set up
within the disaster area. It is from here that mobile teams' activities are
co-ordinated, patients are gathered, treated and their data tracked, and
decisions are made about evacuating them elsewhere.
Broadband communication links enhances patient treatment, enabling video
conferencing with hospital staff in another country as well as telediagnosis
techniques such as ultrasound.
Francesco Feliciani explained: "Most of all DELTASS allows us to 'follow'
each patient from his first contact with the search and rescue team through
the quite complex chain of events that characterises the diagnostic and
therapeutic intervention, distributed over time and space."
During the DELTASS baptism of fire, a Mobile Field Hospital was placed in
Ulm along with three search and rescue teams, a mobile ambulance and a
Portable Telemedicine Workstation.
The trial proved a great success, with several actors playing 'victims',
relayed by ambulance to the Mobile Field Hospital. A live teleconsultation
link was established with a hospital in Berlin, standing in as a second
opinion reference hospital.
The DELTASS project commenced in July 2001. ESA worked on it with a number
of partners including CNES and the French space medicine institute MEDES.
"DELTASS is an integrated solution where several hardware and software
elements are used together" Francesco Feliciani said. "The real challenge
was adapting and combining these elements to create a coherent set-up
enabling emergency telemedicine.
"Now, following this demonstration, we are negotiating with the DELTASS team
to launch a co-funded project to bring it to a real utilisation phase, to be
operated by real users for actual emergency cases. We will hear more about
this system in coming months!"
[ANS thanks the European Space Agency for the above information.]
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