"Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD)"

Abstract: The difficult-to-accept truth of our present era is that the United States faces a future clouded by the threat of terrorist actions involving nuclear, biological, and chemical agents (also known as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Such actions, previously inconceivably immoral, could produce large numbers of civilian casualties that would overwhelm existing healthcare facilities, jeopardizing the lives of victims and healthcare providers. The current technologies supporting acute field care of victims of disasters, and particularly victims of attacks with WMD’s are simply inadequate and that new systems and technologies for care need to be developed. The focus of the WIISARD project the use scalable wireless Internet healthcare that use location aware technologies to coordinate and enhance care of victims of WMD attacks and/or natural disaster. WIISARD is designed for use by a Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS) units, Department of Homeland Security supported teams trained to respond to WMD events, at the site of WMD attack. The objective of WIISARD is to coordinate care at the site for hours to days, until victims can be transferred to hospitals. The system includes tightly integrated hardware and software components optimized for the mass casualty setting. The key elements of the hardware portions of system include: 1) an “active”802.11-based electronic triage tag for victims that reports geolocation and displays victims’triage status and instructions for management; 2) real-time wireless (802.11) blood pulse-oximetry monitoring for critical victims; 3) tracking and data relay units that support access points, data aggregation, geoloaction and data communications (TDRUs). TDRU’s use combinations 802,11b infrastructure, ad hoc MESH networking and G3 cellular technologies to provide robust scalable high speed data communications on the site and a reliable multi-modal backhaul to global Internet resources; and a wireless handheld medical records system. WIISARD is a joint project of the School of Medicine of the University of California, San Diego, the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CalIT2) and the San Diego Regional MMRS. WIISARD is funded by a contract with the National Library of Medicine by the Library’s Disaster Informatics program.

Bio: Dr. Lenert is a Professor at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Associate Director of Biomedical Informatics for of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) and a Staff Physician and Researcher at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. Dr. Lenert received his MD from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also holds an a MS in Medical Informatics from Stanford University and is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology. Prior to the 9-11 Al Qaeda attacks, Dr. Lenert’s research focused on developing computer systems assist to patients, physicians and policy makers with difficult healthcare decisions. He has published over 80 papers on various topics in this area, focusing on software systems for measurement of patients’preferences using decision analytic techniques such as the standard gamble. After 9-11, Dr. Lenert began work with CALIT2 to develop the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD) project. WIISARD is advanced wireless location aware electronic records system designed to enhance facilitate the care of victims at the site of disasters or terrorist attack.