Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Tracking Private Lynch

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2003 09:05:49 -0500

Tracking Private Lynch

BY Dan Caterinicchia
April 3, 2003

FARWANIYA, Kuwait — A Web-based Defense Department
medical system has tracked Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch ever
since
she was rescued April 1 from Iraqi territory.

As her family and friends celebrate and monitor her
progress, the
Transportation Command (Transcom) Regulating and Command
and Control Evacuation System (TRAC2ES) keeps track of
Lynch and the transport of other military patients, said
Army Lt.
Col. Eric Radford, medical regulating officer for the 3rd
Medical
Command, Atlanta.

"Pfc. Lynch came into one of our facilities in Kuwait, was
treated
and observed, and then MedEvac-ed out of this theater,"
Radford
said during a phone interview today from Camp Arifjan.

Lynch, 19, was wounded in a March 23 ambush and had been an
Iraqi prisoner of war until
Special Operations commandos rescued her earlier this week
at Saddam Hospital in Nasiriyah,
Iraq. She is being treated at a military hospital in
Germany.

TRAC2ES (pronounced "traces") has been providing command and
control of global patient
movement ever since Operation Iraqi Freedom began. It is
managed by Transcom at Scott Air
Force Base, Ill., where users go through a two- to three-day
training session, said Radford, 48,
a reservist from Aikens, S.C., who has been here since
December 2002.

"It is the primary means of evacuating out of theater here
in Iraq and Kuwait," he said. "It's been
very effective for us because of the speed, accuracy and
ability to move [wounded soldiers]
throughout the world."

About 50 doctors and other military medical personnel in
southwest Asia are using the system --
about four trained users in each hospital, Radford said. He
said that the exact number of
wounded soldiers who have been entered into TRAC2ES is
known, but not releasable to the
public because of operational security.

As a medical regulating officer, Radford uses the system to
submit patient movement requests to
Central Command's Joint Patient Movement Requirements Center
for approval, he said.

TRAC2ES, which was developed by Booz Allen Hamilton and
numerous subcontractors, has
been operational since 2001 and can be accessed via the
Internet from any computer
worldwide. The No. 1 challenge impeding the system is a lack
of bandwidth in this war's theater
of operations.

"Nonsecure bandwdith becomes smaller and smaller as the war
initiates," Radford said. "It has
affected the speed of the system somewhat and the number of
people on it."

But DOD has used some workarounds that enable medical
personnel to save patient
information and then send it on later when more bandwidth is
available, as long as the delay
won't adversely wounded serviceperson won't be adversely
affected by the delay, he said.

Still, even with the bandwidth constraints, TRAC2ES is light
years ahead of its predecessors,
which were all closed, standalone systems, "and the Army
couldn't talk to the Air Force who
couldn't talk to the Navy," Radford said.

"This system is joint and used by all the services, which is
much more of a benefit," he said,
adding that it's all being done on "dusty laptops" that have
not been hampered by the sand or
heat. "So far, so good."

Al Picarelli, senior vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton,
said it was gratifying to know that the
company's work is contributing to saving lives.

"I’ve seen several stories about wounded soldiers and
Marines moved from the battlefield, to
Landstuhl [Regional Medical Center in Germany], and
eventually back here to Walter Reed and
Bethesda, and I know that TRAC2ES played a role in ensuring
they got the best care possible
in route," Picarelli said.
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2003/middle_east/web-med-04-03-03.asp

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