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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 55 records · Page 3
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1987

Rotorcraft-based emergency medical services in the Caribbean Basin

There is a pressing need for improved health care in general and emergency health care in particular throughout the Caribbean Basin. The importance of rotorcraft as an integral part of the needed system of emergency medical care in the region was investigated. Many of the larger countries in the region currently have the needed infrastructure to implement a national system of rotorcraft-based emergency medical centers within their borders. By helping to establish a system of rotorcraft based health care centers in strategic locations in the Lesser Antilles, the U.S. can assist the islands of the region by demonstrating the concept and establishing a potential training site for the other larger countries of the region. There is sufficient demand for rotorcraft based emergency health care within the Lesser Antilles to locate one center on the island of Puerto Rico and another one of the southern-most islands. With the use of fixed wing aircraft or long range helicopters, the two rotorcraft based centers could provide the region with rapid and efficient emergency health care. The superior speed and range of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor aircraft make it an attractive possibility for emergency transport and rescue in this region.

Smith, R. W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Meeting human needs

Manned space flight can be viewed as an interaction of three general elements: the human crewmember, spacecraft systems, and the environment. While the human crewmember is a crucial element in the system, certain physiological, psychological, environ- mental and spacecraft systems factors can compromise human performance in space. These factors include atmospheric pressure, physiology, uncertainties associated with space radiation, the potential for exposure to toxic materials in the closed environment, and spacecraft habitability. Health protection in space, for current and future missions, relies on a philosophy of risk reduction, which in the space program is achieved in four ways-through health maintenance, health care, design criteria, an selection and training. Emphasis is place upon prevention, through selection criteria and careful screening. Spacecraft health care systems must be absolutely reliable, and they will be automated and computerized to the maximum extent possible, but still designed with the human crewmember's capabilities in mind. The autonomy and technological sophistication of future missions will require a greater emphasis on high-level interaction between the human operator and automated systems, with effective allocation of tasks between humans and machines. Performance in space will include complex tasks during extravehicular activity (EVA) and on planetary surfaces, and knowledge of crewmembers' capability and limitations during such operations will be critical to mission success. Psychological support will become increasingly important on space missions, as crews spend long periods in remote and potentially hazardous environments. The success of future missions will depend on both individual psychological health and group cohesion and productivity, particularly as crew profiles become more heterogeneous. Thus, further human factors are needed in the area of small-group dynamics and performance.

Nicogossian, Arnauld E.↗
NASA NTRS1977

STARPAHC systems report. Volume 2: Operational performance

The Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care (STARPAHC) demonstrated the value and potential of telemedicine using physician's assistants for providing quality health care delivery to people in a remote area. Generally, the program's achievements were to: (1) establish the feasibility of the STARPAHC concept in the delivery of health care; (2) gain information for developing health care systems for future manned spacecraft; (3) determine the constraints and capabilities involved in the interaction between physicians and non-physician health care personnel; (4) determine effectiveness of the STARPAHC technique; and (5) define the additional developments that are needed and/or most valuable to improving telemedicine and its exportable potential.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1992

Medical care capabilities for Space Station Freedom: A phase approach

As a result of Congressional mandate Space Station Freedom (SSF) was restructured. This restructuring activity has affected the capabilities for providing medical care on board the station. This presentation addresses the health care facility to be built and used on the orbiting space station. This unit, named the Health Maintenance Facility (HMF) is based on and modeled after remote, terrestrial medical facilities. It will provide a phased approach to health care for the crews of SSF. Beginning with a stabilization and transport phase, HMF will expand to provide the most advanced state of the art therapeutic and diagnostic capabilities. This presentation details the capabilities of such a phased HMF. As Freedom takes form over the next decade there will be ever-increasing engineering and scientific developmental activities. The HMF will evolve with this process until it eventually reaches a mature, complete stand-alone health care facility that provides a foundation to support interplanetary travel. As man's experience in space continues to grow so will the ability to provide advanced health care for Earth-orbital and exploratory missions as well.

Doarn, C. R.↗
NASA NTRS1977

STARPAHC systems report. Volume 1: Executive summary

A joint NASA and Department of Health, Education, and Welfare/Indian Health Services demonstration project entitled Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care (STARPAHC) was conducted to develop a solution for delivering quality health care to people in remote geographical areas. The STARPAHC concept verified the feasibility of telemedicine plus physician assistant - under the direction of a physician as a means of delivering quality health care. The two years of operational evaluation have provided considerable medical and engineering data which will be valuable to the designers and planners of future health care systems on earth and in space.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1991

A health maintenance facility for space station freedom

We describe a health care facility to be built and used on an orbiting space station in low Earth orbit. This facility, called the health maintenance facility, is based on and modeled after isolated terrestrial medical facilities. It will provide a phased approach to health care for the crews of Space Station Freedom. This paper presents the capabilities of the health maintenance facility. As Freedom is constructed over the next decade there will be an increase in activities, both construction and scientific. The health maintenance facility will evolve with this process until it is a mature, complete, stand-alone health care facility that establishes a foundation to support interplanetary travel. As our experience in space continues to grow so will the commitment to providing health care.

Health Promotion/organization & administration/sta↗
NASA NTRS1991

The Canadian experience: Using telemedicine for the support of medical care at remote sites

While the majority of Canadians live in a narrow strip about 200 miles wide just north of the 45th parallel, a significant proportion of the population lives in non-urban, remote and sometimes isolated areas. Given this widely dispersed population, the provision of health services has always been a challenge. A list of non-urban health needs include the following: consulting services; clinical laboratory resources; investigative techniques (e.g., EEG, radiology, ultrasound, nuclear medicine); continuing education for physicians, nurses and other health professionals; teaching and training programs for administrative and support staff (dietary, housekeeping, maintenance); community health education and improved general education for health workers and families. For nearly three decades physicians and other health care professionals in the United States and Canada have been exploring the application of telecommunications to health care in rural and remote areas. The terms telemedicine and telehealth are used interchangeably to describe this activity. The prefix 'tele' refers to distance and now includes all types of communication over distance that support health care and health educational programs. Actually, telemedicine is as old as the telephone, which is still the most widely used communications technology in health care.

House, Maxwell↗
NASA NTRS2009

The NASA Clinic System

NASA maintains on site occupational health clinics at all Centers and major facilities NASA maintains an on-site clinic that offers comprehensive health care to astronauts at the Johnson Space Center NASA deploys limited health care capability to space and extreme environments Focus is always on preventive health care

Scarpa, Philip J.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Medical care delivery in the US space program

The stated goal of this meeting is to examine the use of telemedicine in disaster management, public health, and remote health care. NASA has a vested interest in providing health care to crews in remote environments. NASA has unique requirements for telemedicine support, in that our flight crews conduct their job in the most remote of all work environments. Compounding the degree of remoteness are other environmental concerns, including confinement, lack of atmosphere, spaceflight physiological deconditioning, and radiation exposure, to name a few. In-flight medical care is a key component in the overall support for missions, which also includes extensive medical screening during selection, preventive medical programs for astronauts, and in-flight medical monitoring and consultation. This latter element constitutes the telemedicine aspect of crew health care. The level of in-flight resources dedicated to medical care is determined by the perceived risk of a given mission, which in turn is related to mission duration, planned crew activities, and length of time required for return to definitive medical care facilities.

Stewart, Donald F.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Health maintenance on Space Station

Medical support for extended manned missions aboard such spacecraft as the NASA Space Shuttle must encompass prevention, diagnosis, and therapy capabilities in the preflight and postflight as well as actual mission phases. An evaluation is presently made of the technological and management challenges that must be met in order to furnish an adequate inflight health care delivery system that possesses adequate inflight health care, real-time environmental monitoring, physiological countermeasures, and medical rescue/recovery facilities for ill or injured crew members.

Logan, J. S.↗
NASA NTRS2001

The Role of Space Medicine in Management of Risk in Spaceflight

The purpose of Space Medicine is to ensure mission success by providing quality and comprehensive health care throughout all mission phases to optimize crew health and performance and to prevent negative long-term health consequences. Space flight presents additional hazards and associated risks to crew health, performance, and safety. With an extended human presence in space it is expected that illness and injury will occur on orbit, which may present a significant threat to crew health and performance and to mission success. Maintaining crew health, safety and performance and preventing illness and injury are high priorities necessary for mission success and agency goals. Space flight health care should meet the standards of practice of evidence based clinical medicine. The function of Space Medicine is expected to meet the agency goals as stated in the 1998 NASA Strategic Plan and the priorities established by the Critical Path Roadmap Project. The Critical Path Roadmap Project is an integrated NASA cross-disciplinary strategy to assess, understand, mitigate, and manage the risks associated with long-term exposure to the space flight environment. The evidence based approach to space medicine should be standardized, objective process yielding expected results and establishing clinical practice standards while balancing individual risk with mission (programmatic) risk. The ability to methodically apply available knowledge and expertise to individual and mission health issues will ensure appropriate priorities are assigned and resources are allocated. NASA Space Medicine risk management process is a combined clinical and engineering approach. Competition for weight, power, volume, cost, and crew time must be balanced in making decisions about the care of individual crew with competing agency resources.

Clark, Jonathan B.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Commercial applications of telemedicine

Telemedicine Systems Corporation was established in 1976 and is a private commercial supplier of telemedicine systems. These systems are various combinations of communications and diagnostic technology, designed to allow the delivery of health care services to remote facilities. The technology and the health care services are paid for by the remote facilities, such as prisons.

Natiello, Thomas A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Training Space Surgeons for Missions to the Moon and Mars

Over a period of 4 years, several working groups reviewed the provisions for medical care in low earth orbit and for future flights such as to the Moon and Mars. More than 60 medical experts representing a wide variety of clinical backgrounds participated in the working groups. They concluded that NASA medical training for long-duration missions, while critical to success, is currently aimed at short-term skill retention. They noted that several studies have shown that skills and knowledge deteriorate rapidly in the absence of adequate sustainment training. American Heart Association studies have shown that typically less than twenty-five percent of learned skills remain after 6 to 8 months. In addition to identifying the current training deficiencies, the working groups identified additional skill and knowledge sets required for missions to the Moon and Mars and curricula were developed to address inadequacies. Space medicine care providers may be categorized into 4 types based on health care responsibilities and level of education required. The first 2 types are currently recognized positions within the flight crew: crew medical officers and astronaut-physician. The crew medical officer (CMO), a non-medically trained astronaut crewmember, is given limited emergency medical technician-like training to provide medical care on orbit. Many of hidher duties are carried out under the direction of a ground-based flight surgeon in mission control. Second is the astronaut- physician whose primary focus is on mission specialist duties and training, and who has very limited ability to maintain medical proficiency. Two new categories are recommended to complete the 4 types of care providers primarily to address the needs of those who will travel to the Moon and Mars. Physician astronaut - a physician, who in addition to being a mission specialist, will be required to maintain and enhance hidher medical proficiency while serving as an astronaut. Space surgeon - a physician astronaut given special training to address the unique health care requirements envisioned for expeditions such as those to Mars.

Pool, S. L.↗
NASA NTRS1976

United States societal experiments via the Communications Technology Satellite

After a brief description of the Communication Technology Satellite and its U.S. coverage, the U.S. societal experiments via the CTS are discussed. These include education (college curriculum sharing, and project interchange), health care (biomedical communications, health communications, and communication support for decentralized education), and community and special experiments (satellite library information network, and transportable earth terminal).

Donoughe, P. L.↗
NASA NTRS1996

The Physiology of Bed Rest

Prolonged rest in bed has been utilized by physicians and other health-care workers to immobilize and confine patients for rehabilitation and restoration of health since time immemorial. The sitting or horizontal position is sought by the body to relieve the strain of the upright or vertical postures, for example during syncopal situations, bone fractures, muscle injuries, fatigue, and probably also to reduce energy expenditure. Most health-care personnel are aware that adaptive responses occurring during bed rest proceed concomitantly with the healing process; signs and symptoms associated with the former should be differentiated from those of the latter. Not all illnesses and infirmities benefit from prolonged bed rest. Considerations in prescribing bed rest for patients-including duration, body position, mode and duration of exercise, light-dark cycles, temperature, and humidity-have not been investigated adequately. More recently, adaptive physiological responses have been measured in normal, healthy subjects in the horizontal or slightly head-down postures during prolonged bed rest as analogs for the adaptive responses of astronauts exposed to the microgravity environment of outer and bed-rest research.

Fortney, Suzanne M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

NASA spinoffs to bioengineering and medicine

Through the active transfer of technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technology Utilization (TU) Program assists private companies, associations, and government agencies to make effective use of NASA's technological resources to improve U.S. economic competitiveness and to provide societal benefit. Aerospace technology from areas such as digital image processing, space medicine and biology, microelectronics, optics and electrooptics, and ultrasonic imaging have found many secondary applications in medicine. Examples of technology spinoffs are briefly discussed to illustrate the benefits realized through adaptation of aerospace technology to solve health care problems. Successful implementation of new technologies increasingly requires the collaboration of industry, universities, and government, and the TU Program serves as the liaison to establish such collaborations with NASA. NASA technology is an important resource to support the development of new medical products and techniques that will further advance the quality of health care available in the U.S. and worldwide.

Biomedical Engineering/instrumentation/trends↗
NASA NTRS1997

Clinical and Educational Support for Space Flight via Telemedicine

Session MP3 includes short reports on: (1) Telemedicine: A User's Perspective; (2) Health Care in Extreme Environments; (3) Integration of Emerging Technologies in Information and Telecommunications in Health Care Systems for Space; (4) Telemedicine and Environmental Medicine in Russia: A First Step in Basic Medical Education; and (5) Clinical Utility of Internet Telemedicine.

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