U.S. ARMY MED. RESEARCH ACQUISITION ACT, MCMR-RMA, FORT DETRICK BLDG. 820, FREDERICK MD 21702-5014

A -- U.S. ARMY MEDICAL FEDERATED LABORATORY PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT (INFORMATION & PLANNING ONLY) SOL DAMD17-CBD5-0008 DUE 050195 POC Charles G. Smith, 301/619-2381, Contracting Officer, Raegon B. Clutz, 301/619/2395, Program Information, Jess Edwards, 301/619/2468 U.S. Army Medical Federated Laboratory Broad Agency Program Announcement. A- INTRODUCTION: This is not a solicitation but is for information and planning purposes only. This Program Announcement is issued based on the U.S. Army Federated Laboratory Concept. Reference: BAA, dated 14 December 1994, of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. The U. S. Army Medical Department's Medical Research & Materiel Command (MRMC) with Headquarters at Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland, announces the opportunity to participate in a comparable Medical Federated Laboratory Concept focused on combat casualty care. B-INTERNET AVAILABILITY: Medical Federated Laboratory information is available on the DoD Telemedicine Test Bed World Wide Web (WWW) Server (http://ftdetrck-matmoweb.army.mil) or via Anonymous FTP (ftp://14- .139.41.32/pub/FEDLab-ftp). The Program Announcement, any notices of amendments to the Broad Agency Announcement, responses to questions, details of MRMC on-going work, and any other information deemed useful to potential offerors will be provided at this address and contained in the directory called /pub/fedlab. C-OVERVIEW: The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (MRMC) intends to accomplish the research and development goals contained in this Broad Agency Program Announcement through the issuance of up to two Cooperative Agreement(s) under the authority of 10 United States Code (USC) 2358, Research Projects. Interested parties will be required to form consortia involving health services providers, industry, and academia. D-PROGRAM BACKGROUND: The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) has concerted programs that explore basic science and technology development for improved combat casualty care. MRMC will build in-partnership on these basic research and development ARPA programs through a federation of its in-house components collaborating with partners in civil health care, industry, and academia, striving together for new excellence in military telemedicine. MRMC seeks proposals from the nation's best tertiary and primary care providers, industrial firms, universities, and private laboratories or research institutes under the provisions of this single competitive BAA. This BAA requires respondents to form consortia with defined articles of collaboration providing for allocation of MRMC funds among collaborators, and describing mechanisms for exchanging ideas and personnel with counterparts, and with MRMC. The latter intellectual synergy must extend to sharing equipment and facilities to promote efficiency. A significant outcome of this effort will be to create a functionally significant core of private and government scientists and engineers focused on solving the Army's telemedical challenges. E-TECHNICAL AREAS: This Program addresses two Technical Elements of MRMC's digitization initiative. Technical Element 1: TELECOMMUNICATIONS /AND INFORMATION DISTRIBUTION FOR TELEMEDICINE. The communications that support military telemedicine are properly a subset of battlefield telecommunications. Like other subsets, they involve the reliable, timely, and secure electronic transport of multimedia information over heterogeneous, digital networks exhibiting dynamic topologies. Telecommunications includes the seamless interface among tactical, operational, strategic, sustaining base, and commercial systems for joint and multinational deployments under the Global Command and Control System (GCCS). ''Telemedicine'' involves information pertaining to patients or exchanges between physicians-privileged communications in a legal sense-that often include complex images. ''Telecommunications'' as used here addresses issues that are insensitive to message content. ''Information distribution ''addresses issues that are content-sensitive. The Army goal is to field a highly mobile, flexible fighting force that operates in a joint (tri- service) and multinational battle environment. The Army's telemedicine focus to support this goal must be based on emerging digital technologies in health care and telecommunications. Telecommunications focus involve short-range wireless communications-voice, video, and data-among soldiers in units on the battlefields, or within field hospitals, to intercontinental wired and satellite communications. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has adopted commercial standards for its long-haul networks (the SONET / ATM global grid). There is an absolute requirement for the Army telecommunications networks to interoperate across the services and DISA. Research in this Technical Element should support the Army telecommunications goals with innovative ideas for application of future commercial technology to Army telemedicine. Battlefield telemedicine is characterized by unique challenges: the need for mission essential quality, survivable multilevel secure networks among mobile subscribers, the presence of hostile jamming, self-jamming, and physical destruction of communications assets, interception and alteration of messages, and the necessity of securing content, volume, and identities of users of communications exchanging voice, images, and data at various levels of classification. Battlefield telemedicine is concerned primarily with moving information in a reliable, secure, and timely manner through a hostile environment. ''Information'' includes imagery (including real-time video), voice and data. Telemedicine may also require retrieval of information from remote archives, and involve an unusual volume of data- intensive consultations between CONUS hospitals and medical units overseas. Technical Element 2: DISTRIBUTED INTERACTIVE SIMULATION. Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) is defined as a system enabling the execution of rule-based, stochastic, or deterministic models at distributed sites, with human-in-the-loop, linked for a common purpose and having a common view of that purpose. Each site consists of one or more processors, serving one of two forms of tactical engagement simulation (TES): (1) constructive, typically a stochastic model mounted on a work station (e.g., JANUS); (2) Virtual, usually a manned simulator, with robust computers and displays, representing a vehicle operating in a synthetic combat environment (e.g., SIMNET), or an individual combatant on a synthetic battlefield (I-PORT); (3) live, engagement simulation with actual forces maneuvering on an instrumented range (e.g., a Combat Training Center (CTC)), with one or more computers processing information on each participant's location, combat status, and weapon system interactions. Data among sites (nodes) is processed and communicated over the Defense Simulation Internet (DSI) using predefined DIS protocols. The nodes can be distributed anywhere in the world, in large numbers, and can function with different hardware and software so long as interfaces with DSI be provided, and the DIS protocols be observed. The objective of this Broad Agency Announcement is to conduct development requisite for inserting AMEDD's combat medics, physicians, and nurses into DIS, and engaging fully their professional skills and knowledge. Medical simulation in DIS can then be used: (1) during research and development to enable experienced AMEDD personnel to assess the form, fit, function, and military worth of proposed medical materiel, or new doctrine for combat casualty care; (2) during the formal Test and Evaluation of materiel, to demonstrate that it is ready for fielding; (3) for rehearsals of military operations; and (4) in institutional and unit training. Increased automation of our forces and materiel, including its acquisition and operational utilization, provides the highest pay-off potential to offset the strategic and tactical disadvantages of a substantially smaller land-force, to reduce cost and time of maintaining force preparedness, and to increase mission adaptability and operational capability. To exploit this potential for its continued modernization, the Army has adopted the concepts of Distributed Interactive Simulation and Digitization of the Battlefield. DIS, which encompasses high performance computing, communications networking, and automated information management, is central to their realization. To date, DIS simulation of medical units and functions on a combined arms battlefield has been primitive, chiefly live exercises at the Army's CTC using the probabilistic ''casualty cards'' issued with the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement Simulation (MILES) system. To engage the AMEDD more broadly in DIS, the Army requires a series of combat casualty histories, each a DIS- compatible scenario of the physiological progress of a particular casualty, preferably derived from empirical data, expressed in vital signs, imagery, or other appropriate stimuli for medical decisions, capable of interacting with human participants trying to affect clinical outcome. Hardware and software will be developed for each of two forms of DIS, and validated and verified for use in professional medical education and training. E-FUNDING: This announcement is issued subject to availability of funding. F-OPPORTUNITY CONFERENCE: The MRMC will sponsor a Medical Federated Laboratory Opportunity Conference on February 27, 1995 at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases Auditorium at Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland to clarify Government interests, and to provide potential offerors an opportunity for a clearer understanding of the objectives of the Broad Agency Announcement. Industry interested in attending the conference are asked to Register with the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, ATTN: MCMR-AT (Mr. Jess Edwards), MRMC-Medical Federated Laboratory-95, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD 21702, 301/619-2468. (0040)

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