NASA’s Ames Research Center and Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital recently signed a Space Act Agreement to be partners in the implementation of state-of-the-art information technologies to develop a "virtual hospital" in 1999. Ames is NASA’s Center of Excellence for Information Technology and has strong three-dimensional imaging capabilities in its Center for Bioinformatics. Under the terms of the agreement, Ames will establish a workstation at the hospital capable of transmitting data and receiving three-dimensional images of the human body. The hospital will transmit diagnostic data to Ames over NASA’s Research and Education Network (NREN). Hospital medical teams will be able to evaluate and manipulate the three-dimensional images over NREN.

When the virtual hospital demonstration begins operations during 1999, Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital physicians will be able to provide feedback to NASA regarding image quality and network efficiency. A virtual hospital is defined as a health care facility with technology to transmit and manipulate electronically three-dimensional high-fidelity resolute images in real time.

Future plans call for Ames and the hospital to work cooperatively with Stanford University Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic in exploring the possibility of implementing the virtual hospital technology to remote areas around the world and eventually in space. The three hospitals, all major cardiac centers, would use high-speed Internet links to exchange images and information. The virtual hospital would also enable doctors to conduct cooperative training exercises and be able to perform "dry run" surgeries using three-dimensional images.

Article Courtesy of "NASA Innovations"

Contact: Dr. Muriel Ross at (650) 604-4804