To support the COVID-19 surge response, the Army’s Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) https://www.tatrc.org at Fort Detrick in Maryland, funded the National Emergency Tele-Critical Care Network (NETCCN).
NETCCN, a set of cloud-based, low resource, stand-alone health information management systems, is in place to create and coordinate virtual critical care. TATRC has identified the need to add two virtual hospital capabilities to the NETCCN platform.
The Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (MTEC) https://mtec-sc.org, is a biomedical technology consortium with members from industry, academia, and the non-profit sector. MTEC has posted the Pre-Solicitation for an upcoming Request for Project Proposal (RPP). The RPP approach enables offerors to submit Enhanced White Papers. Offerors will then be invited to submit a full cost proposal.
The upcoming RPP seeks an Enhanced White Paper to specifically address only one of the two focus areas listed below:
- Focus Area #1—The Accelerating Medical Device Interoperability and Autonomy (MDIA) topic is focused on accelerating mechanical and integration into NETCCN platforms to support tele-critical care for COVID-19 patients
- Focus Area #2—The Technology in Disaster Environments (TiDE) Learning Accelerator (TLA) (MTEC 21-04 TiDE is focused on developing performance measures to improve delivery through virtual hospital capabilities Additional information is available at https://mtec-sc.org/solicitations.
In addition, TATRC is funding activities outside of the MTEC consortium to support two additional focus areas. One activity involves developing the Device Interoperability and Autonomy Coordinating Center (DIACC).
TATRC funded MITRE https://www.mitre.org to establish the DIACC. Through DIACC, TATRC has engaged the Medical Device Plug and Play Interoperability & Cybersecurity Program at Mass General, JHU Applied Physics Lab, Society of Critical Care Medicine, and with civilian and military tele-critical care experts.
The goal for DIACC is to identify and prioritize projects related to device interoperability, remote monitoring/control, and autonomy to enhance the quality and impact of tele-critical care for COVID patients managed within the NETCCN.
The other activity is to establish TATRC Data Commons to collect research data from NETCCN performers, surveys, data conducted through NETCCN platforms, and additional data sets to supplement research efforts. The prototype TATRC Data Commons is currently located at JHU’s Applied Physics Lab.
For more information on TATRC’s plans to build the National Emergency Tele-Critical Care Network, go to the TATRC Times at https://tatrc.org (October 2020 issue).