Defense Department - Telehealth - OverviewOverview: MELE Associates provides program management and technical support services to the Director and Program Manager of the Hui at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Hui, a DoD/VA joint venture, is a subsidiary of the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) under the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. Formed in 1999 to administer and execute Congressional Appropriations to improve the quality, accessibility, patient satisfaction and cost-effectiveness of healthcare services to the nearly 800,000 veterans and federal beneficiaries in the Pacific region – the Hui facilitates interdisciplinary research partnerships with government, academia and industry to advance the development of emerging technologies and improve health care.
To enable Telehealth communications between remote areas of Hawaii and the Pacific region and the VA PIHCS ambulatory care center in Honolulu, MELE designed and upgraded the VA PIHCS network. Completed in 2000, the upgraded Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network supports multiple protocols for a full range of Telehealth applications.
The State of Hawaii Telehealth Access Network (STAN) connects 22 Pacific Island jurisdictions over a geographic area of 4.8 million square miles. In Hawaii, STAN links 18 private hospitals, the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, Department of Public Health and the University of Hawaii School of Nursing.
MELE Associates provided program management support for the Hui in project management, research, technical and clinical informatics, and business support disciplines. Project management support services include acquisition planning, developing equipment and services requirements, activity tracking, project review, and property management. MELE’s technical and clinical informatics development team integrates technology solutions into existing infrastructures. Under the program management contract, MELE provides marketing support to enable the transfer of technology developed by the Hui to other public and private organizations. Toward that end, MELE also seeks and provides legal counsel to ensure the protection of intellectual property rights.
In support of the Hui, MELE pioneered development of open source VistA, a fully integrated electronic health record system based on VA’s robust VistA system available to the public through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
Concurrent to development of a feasibility study submitted for Congressional review, MELE provided project management to develop Telehealth demonstration projects at the Hui to illustrate the hands-on methods for improving healthcare and services to remote areas including Telepharmacy, Telepsychiatry, Telehomecare, primary healthcare assessment, data warehousing, network upgrades and interconnectivity. In the development of these projects, MELE provided economic analysis, software development, program planning, budgeting formulation, budget execution and program evaluation for the operational plan of the Hui.
For information on how MELE Associates' Application Service Provider (ASP) which provides the Open Source Vista electronic health record system, based on the VA's robust Vista EHR, to physicians' offices, clinics and hospitals without the need for expensive hardware, technical staffing and costly proprietary licences -- please visit www.vistaasp.com. Printer-friendly version
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