The BMIS-T Brings Dog Tags into the Digital Age

Dog tags as a way of collecting medical identification about a soldier have been around for a while. They were a quick way to identify the victim or get informations about blood type. Like so many other things in life, the dog tags are entering the digital age. The idea to place medical information onto USB flash drives that can be read by Personal Digital Assistants carried by medics on the battlefield.

Tommy Morris, a medic with the Army's Third Infantry Division first conceived the idea when working in Macedonia. Rain storms which frequently swept through the region causing the medical records of patients to become blurry or smeared. Thinking that there must be a better way he promised to update the technology used to keep track of a soldier's medical information. The Battlefield Medical Information System Tactical (BMIS-T) uses a database filled with medical information that can operate on a PDA. The new dog tags issued to soldiers can then be inserted into the pda carried by a medic. Then the software can come up with a treatment plan based on the information stored on the wounded military member's dog tag.

Part of the reasons the system has been successful is that it is that it can run on multiple operating systems including Windows CE or the more stable Palm OS. The decision to write the software using C++ further increased the number of options it can run on. In its final form, the B-MIST runs on a Compaq computer's Ipaq after a cost-benefit revealed that the system provided the flexibility needed to make the product cost effective.

Tommy Morris, who designed the system, initially had trouble securing funding from the government for the product. Because the Department of Defense looked into competing technologies while the BMIS-T was under development, he had to go out and secure money for the project by himself.

While the system is currently being used by the military, it has civilian applications also. Emergency health care workers could benefit by having a patients history and allergies to certain medications on a chip available immediately to first responders. France, in fact, looked at the new technology not only for use by their armed forces, but eventually for use by their state health care system. Not only will it benefit doctors, it will have lasting benefits on the environment as well. One great advantage the BMIS-T system has over record keeping methods is that it requires far less paper.

Sources:

http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=916&issueID=65

http://www.gcn.com/print/24_30/37180-1.html

"Top Medical Breakthroughs and How You'll Benefit." Reader's Digest. March 2007. New York, New York.