For the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., telemedicine made its debut during a Somalia medical mission for Operation Restore Hope, a United Nations Humanitarian Relief effort in 1992. Using a mobile telemedicine system with satellite communication was a dynamic means of delivering healthcare to a country devastated by famine and a wide variety of infectious diseases.
This brand of tertiary care was quickly duplicated for medical missions in other countries like Croatia, Haiti, Ivory Coast, and Kuwait using a combination of store-and-forward technologies and interactive video conferencing systems.
In October 1995, WRAMC relied on Dr. Ron Poropatich, who trained military physicians on telemedicine for the overseas missions, to bring the technology home to army medical centers here. This mammoth project, called the North Atlantic Regional Medical Command, became so demanding that it now takes up 80 percent of Dr. Poropatich's time to coordinate.
Despite WRAMC's impressive history with overseas telemedicine, the publicity has been spotty and physician acceptance isn't where it should be, according to Dr. Poropatich. A word-of-mouth PR effort grabbed the attention of "Good Morning America" and National Public Radio, but much more could be done to promote the image of WRAMC's telemedicine programs.
Armed with a bare-bones budget of $600,000 to cover NARMC's 21 states and 45 army medical centers, Dr. Poropatich says that the funds are barely enough to cover its three telemedicine objectives: research and development, clinical operations and the Worldwide Web site (http://www.wramc.amedd.army.mil).
Aside from devoting frequent coverage to the programs in WRAMC's newsletter, The Stripe, Hill is looking at the Web site to promote WRAMC's hot programs like the Distance Learning projects and the creation of specialty response teams for federal, state and local emergency relief agencies. Teleconsulting services like Ask-A-Doc and Doc-To-Doc, were recently launched to promote increased physician access via the Internet and e-mail. More and more, Dr. Poropatich is wearing a PR hat. (WRAMC, 202/782-8936)