Brooke Army Medical Center (BAMC) www.bamc.amedd.army has been selected to be the Army’s first virtual medical center as announced by Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West. Along with in-house virtual efforts, BAMC will also be able to tap into virtual efforts underway at other military medical facilities and then eventually expand the viral efforts military wide.
Although the military virtual medical center concept is new, virtual health is well established at BAMC. For example, BAMC has conducted a longstanding dermatology virtual health program with the Evans Army Community Hospital https://evans.amedd.army.mil.
“Evans began dermatology teleconsultations because of significant case-loads and limited staffing at the dermatology clinic”, said Wayne Arvizu, a Nurse and Chief of Telemedicine at Evans.
When the program started, patients would come to the hospital’s Dermatology Clinic, and a staff member would use a point and shoot camera to photograph a skin lesion upload the image to a database. The next step was for doctors at BAMC to look at each image and makes a diagnosis.
At this point, the doctors then presented their diagnosis to their proctor, who further reviewed the image and confirmed the diagnosis which was sent back to Evans within 72 hours along with instructions on how to treat the patient.
Unfortunately, the dermatologist teleconsultations which began in 2004 between Evans and Brooke ended in 2011. However, the program is currently being revived with a different structure.
According to Arvizu, “Instead of having the dermatology staff take the pictures, we now have cameras at a couple of our primary care clinics equipped with dermatology lenses used to take close up photos of the skin.”
According to Capt. (Dr.) Martin Harris, Chief of the Evans Dermatology Clinic, he looks at the photos, gives his diagnosis and treatment plan, and then signs off on the case in two or three days, instead of a patient taking three to four weeks to get an appointment for a teleconsult.
BAMC’s newest virtual program called the “Mobile Medic” is an internal medicine program that uses a product developed at the Regional Health Command-Europe called “Telehealth in a Bag” or (THIAB).
THIAB works by having Medics go to patients’ homes, set up the virtual equipment, and then connect back to the Internal Medicine provider at BAMC. At this time, the medic performs an exam with the data going back to the provider.
Army Lt. Col (Dr) Sean Hipp, BAMC’s lead for virtual medicine initiatives reports, “BMAC would like to expand a virtual readiness program currently being used in other medical regions. One initiative involves conducting Periodic Health Assessments and Post Deployment Health Readiness Assessments virtually. However, soldiers and providers would be required to travel to fulfill this readiness requirement.”