Earthbound applications for NASA's physician workstation

Area of Science:

• Aerospace Medicine
• Health Informatics
• Computer Science

Background:

• Space exploration necessitates advanced, self-contained health maintenance facilities.
• A physician or astronaut workstation is crucial for interfacing medical data and care providers in space.
• NASA is developing foundational technologies for future space missions and extraterrestrial habitats.

Purpose of the Study:

• To define and develop an interface for a space station's computer resources and healthcare providers.
• To create modular software components for a health maintenance facility adaptable for space and terrestrial applications.
• To design a flexible physician workstation system for use in space missions and private medical practices.

Main Methods:

• Development of a series of software programs for the physician/astronaut workstation.
• Creation of dual-use modules with applications for both space-based healthcare and private medical offices.
• Designing software as objects for flexible assembly and configuration.

Main Results:

• A functional physician/astronaut workstation interface has been developed.
• Key modules include patient scheduling, master patient index, pharmacy, laboratory, medical library, problem list/progress notes, and digital medical records.
• The modular design allows for adaptable configurations for diverse healthcare settings.

Conclusions:

• The developed workstation technology is suitable for testing and refinement using earth-based applications.
• The modular system offers a flexible and scalable solution for outpatient office systems in the private sector.
• This technology supports the integration of advanced health informatics into both space exploration and civilian healthcare.