Research

The Center for Advanced Technology and Telemedicine

Specific Aims: We seek to design develop and test prototype video-enabled airway devices and network topology to allow remotely located providers to participate in airway management using telemedicine.

Airway management in pre-hospital and combat care is inadequate, particularly with trauma. Video enhanced visualization improves intubation success rates based on studies using videolaryngoscopy, particularly in difficult airways. Video enabled supraglottic placement of the LMA and adjunctive devices may improve the success rates of airway rescue for combat and civilian trauma victims. Telemedicine with video devices can improve pre-hospital care if adequate bandwidth is available. Our objective has four elements: 1. Design, develop, and test a video enabled intubating LMA and accessories. These accessories will include robotic decision diagnosis and treatment algorithms which will guide perioperative care, interface with a preoperative record and facilitate the performance of quality control monitoring and best practices improvement in the perioperative process. 2. Design, develop, and test a novel intubating video stylet and accessories 3. Analyze, design, and test local area network (LAN) wireless video transmission for videolaryngoscopy to improve utility in constrained spaces and pre-hospital locations 4. Analyze, design, and test wide area network (WAN) wireless video transmission for video-enabled airway management devices for telemedicine applications.

Current Research Projects:

1. Establishing a Teleanesthesiology Service between the Omaha VA NWIHCS, WRAMC and Satellite Clinics;
2. Initiation of a Village Health Worker Training Program to Reduce the Need for US Military Medical Assets in Afghanistan;
3. Establishment of a Nebraska Western Iowa Health Care System Rural Telehealth Initiative;
4. Development of a Proof of Concept of a Joint VA DOD Perioperative Telemedicine Clinic;
5. Establishment of a Telepsychiatry Center for Wounded Warriors at the University of Nebraska;
6. Development of Battlefield Airway Management for Wounded Warriors: Safe Airway Access in Combat;
7. Battlefield Android Telemedicine System;
8. Battlefield Tracheal Intubation Training Using Virtual Simulation: A Multi Center Operational Utility Evaluation (OUE) of Video Laryngoscope Technology;
9. Airway Management Training for Medical Students

Top Researchers in the College of Medicine - Dr. Ben Boedeker, M.D. has been named top researcher in the College of Medicine.
    
Among Dr. Boedeker's new research projects selected for presentation at the American Society of Anesthesiology meeting in Chicago in October, 2011 are: 

• Advanced Medical Technology Capacity Building: A Unique Application of SOF Counterinsurgency Medical Seminars Medical Programs.
• Use of a Cardiac Algorithm in a Preoperative Evaluation Clinic- A Pilot Study.
• Performance Comparison of Laryngoscopy and Suction Techniques in a Hemorrhagic Airway Manikin Simulator: Direct Laryngoscopy with Yankauer vs. Storz C-MAC with attached Suction Tip.
• Virtual Intubation Training at a Remote Military Site
• A Comparison of Dierct versus Indirect Laryngoscopy during Endotracheal Intubation of Lightly Embalmed Cadavers utilizing the GlideScope, Storz Medi Pack Mobile Imaging System and the Storz C-MAC Videolaryngoscopes.
• Demonstration of Novel Method for Nasal Intubation Using Videolaryngoscopy: An Intubation Bougie and Curved Intubating Forceps.

Other Abstracts accepted for Poster Presentation at ASA 2011:

• Dr. James Chapin, M.D. - Serotonin Toxicity after Administration of Methylene Blue
• Dr. James Sullivan, M.D. - Noninvasive Hemoglobin Measurement Assistance for a Pediatric Solid Organ Transplant.
• Dr. Thomas Schulte, M.D. - Video or Direct Laryngoscopy, Does it really make a difference? A retrospective comparison of 155 Emergency Cases from 2009-2010.