Dr. Winston Mendes Davidson's Page

Our collaboration efforts for telemedicine and disaster preparedness in Kenya are starting to grow wings. We have a state telemedicine network here in the US interested in telemed support for a Kenya clinic. They also have a few doctors who would like to go there soon and work to get this established. We are looking to provide telemed reach back to hospitals and any logical disaster command site.

Along the same lines as the deployment in Kenya we are working on a deployment in downtown Los Angeles. I will paste in a description below. It will provide a very brief glimpse at our vision for this. I invite any input/ideas that comes to mind.
Randy

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I have started a rapidly growing initiative for domestic deployment of our container clinic. I would like to share the concept with you in case you have ideas or other contacts who may wish to become involved.

Here's the concept. I have already received interest regarding similar deployments in several other cities. The level of interest, the caliber of network and of course the need (both today and tomorrow) make this a winner.

The following is a simple thumbnail sketch of a deployment of our “Doc-in-a-Box” containerized emergency response container clinic for Los Angeles or areas threatened by natural disasters. I have been receiving significant interest for this deployment following my presentation at the Jonathan Club. Some of these contacts have key contacts and influence in political and corporate circles. I share this with you all in case you have interest or know others who can help us with this multi-benefit deployment.

CONCEPT OVERVIEW:
To place telemedicine healthcare clinics, housed in a 20’ cargo containers on the streets of downtown LA. In doing so this will provide two significant life-saving benefits. 1. To work to meet the day to day medical and emotional needs of the homeless on the streets of LA. 2. These clinics also represent a profound network of tools and capabilities that will be proactively placed and able to operate instantly when an earthquake (or other natural disaster), pandemic or conflict should occur. It provides a tested and proven built in network of US military, other federal, state, county, municipal and non-governmental agencies (NGO) poised to respond to emergencies immediately after they occur.

This is critical as all major disasters have huge negative impacts on the surge capacity of hospitals (too many people in need and too few resources). This would provide a profoundly valuable force-multiplier in disasters.
The clinics will be staffed with medical students from local universities who, as part of their educational training, will do rounds at these clinics.

Additionally we would entertain the idea of partnering with existing outreach already effectively working to meet the needs of the homeless there. Sponsorship and even branding of the clinics can come through corporate/civic/private interests and offers a high visibility level of community engagement and humanitarian outreach. The situational awareness capabilities these provide – both regarding the homeless now as well as those effected by disaster later – will provide a profoundly beneficial tool for key emergency decision makers in Los Angeles. It provides them with live, real-time ground assessment data from ruggedized, prepositioned medical resources that can be self sustained with solar/wind power and satellite communications. Again, this provides instant operational capability even after a major disaster.

You can learn more about the technology at our web site at www.telehelp.org. You can learn a bit more about the Golden Phoenix event by reading this recent Op/Ed from the New York Times http://telehelp.ning.com/profiles/blogs/new-york-times-op-ed-on-golden . The “Golden Phoenix event it mentions, and the subsequent network based right there out of California, are profoundly effective and efficient. It is headed by my friend US Marine Col, John Persano in San Diego. He too is supportive about this opportunity. Through this effort we can provide huge benefits on many levels.
Please let me know if I can answer any questions or if you have any thoughts you would like to share. Thanks for taking a moment to review this.