Mobile tele-hospitals can help rural areas after disasters

A collaboration between two companies could make it easier to treat people after natural disasters, especially in rural areas that don't have much medical infrastructure.

Most people are familiar with MASH units--Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals--from the long-running TV show: highly mobile prefab tents, surgeons, nurses, and medical supplies that could bring medical aid wherever it was needed.

Inside a MAST unit (AMD photo)

"Today, add telemedicine and community broadband support, and what you have is MAST," Craig Settles reports for The Daily Yonder. "AMD Global Telemedicine and Jenysis Global partnered to create MAST units to help in a variety of settings: disaster recovery, medically underserved communities, military installations, and remote work environments. These self-sufficient units can handle the medical issues that arise from disasters. The units get an extra punch when they are deployed with community fiber networks and gigabit horsepower."

AMD President Eric Bacon told Settles that MAST units (formally called Jenysis Healthcare Solutions) avoid the logistical headache of trying to give people modern treatment in remote areas with spotty or no telephone access. The units can be delivered by truck or helicopter and can be fully assembled in 15 minutes. They're completely self-contained with water, solar panels for power, HVAC, satellite communications, and broadband connection ports. The basic units are set up for easy access to telemedicine services. And communities can customize the units with other equipment for specialized needs such as pediatric care.

Jenysis has been deploying their mobile healthcare units in disasters and other areas in need of health care for more than 20 years, according to a company representative; the telemedicine component is new though. The representative could not say how much the units cost to deploy.