The DREAMS™ Team

In November of 2010, R. Lee Heath, the Chairman and CEO of LifeBot® signed an Option Agreement pursuing exclusive world-wide rights to the Disaster Relief and Emergency Medical Services Project, or DREAMS™, the advanced EMS emergency ambulance telemedicine systems developed with U.S. Army Material Command, Texas A&M University, UT Health Science of Houston, and TATRC, the Department of Defense office for ‘ Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center’.

The digital emergency medical services (Digital EMS) program is led by famed trauma surgeon and educator, Dr. James H. “Red” Duke, Jr., the pioneer of helicopter rescue. Dr. Duke is the Holmes Professor of Surgery at UT Houston and Medical Director of LifeFlight. The software, hardware and telecommunications aspects of this program are led by Texas A&M Professors, Jim Wall, Ph.D., and Larry Flournoy. Other technical support for this program was generously provided by Johnson Space Center and the U.S. Navy. view project details…

The Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) performs medical reconnaissance and special operations to address critical gaps that are underrepresented in DoD medical research programs. TATRC is an office of the headquarters of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC). TATRC fosters research on health informatics, telemedicine/m-Health, medical training systems, and computational biology, and promotes and manages science and engineering in other key portfolios. Through an extensive network of partners, TATRC is focused at both ends of the research spectrum, exploring models of high risk and innovative research, and putting research findings into the hands of warfighters while looking toward wider civilian utility. TATRC augments core medical research programs through special funding and partnership opportunities. view more…

The U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command is the Army’s medical materiel developer, with responsibility for medical research, development, and acquisition and medical logistics management. The USAMRMC’s expertise in these critical areas helps establish and maintain the capabilities the Army needs to fight and win on the battlefield. Ensuring our armed forces remain in optimal health and are equipped to protect themselves from disease and injury, particularly on the battlefield, is the job of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. The Command is headquartered at Fort Detrick, MD, with 11 subordinate commands located throughout the world. view more…

James ‘Red’ Duke, Jr., M.D.

The DREAMS™ (Disaster Relief and Emergency Medical Services) digital emergency medical services (Digital EMS) program is led by famed trauma surgeon and educator, Dr. James H. “Red” Duke, Jr. Dr. Duke is professor of surgery, holder of the John B. Holmes Professorship and chief of surgery at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth), as well as medical director of Memorial Hermann Life Flight. He is also Vice Chairman of Development, Department of Surgery, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Texas, Professor of Emergency Medicine, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Texas, Adjunct Faculty Member, Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine, Department of Veterinary Physiology & Pharmacology, College Station, Texas. view full biography…

S. Ward Casscells, MD

S. Ward Casscells, MD is the John E. Tyson Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Public Health, and Vice President for External Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Texas at Houston, and Senior Scholar at the Texas Heart Institute. His team contributes original data (including the regular Zogby/Casscells surveys) and insights on healthcare reform, pandemic readiness, and health diplomacy. view more…

From April 2007 through April 2009, he served as the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) where he was credited with turning around a struggling $45B health and education system with 137,000 employees and 10 million patients in 900 clinics and hospitals in 100 countries. The system is now #1 in most surveys of patient satisfaction. For this work, Dr Casscells received the United States Department of Defence’s highest civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Surgeon General’s Medallion from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Army’s Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service, and the Order of Military Medical Merit.

Both Dr. Duke and Dr. Cassells received the distinguished General Maxwell Thurman Award from the American Telemedicine Association for their participation in design of the DREAMS™ system. view more…

Larry Flournoy

Mr. Flournoy os the Project Director for DREAMS™. Mr. Flournoy has been the Associate Director of the Academy for Advanced Telecommunications and Learning Technology at Texas A&M University since 2000. The Academy, among other activities, is charged by the Board of Regents of The Texas A&M University System with developing consortia and collaborative opportunities for Texas A&M and the people of Texas in areas of distance learning, telemedicine, advanced telecommunications, and supercomputing. Mr. Flournoy spent 25 years in R, D&E in the oil industry in various parts of the world focusing on communications, ruggedization, and sensor/equipment development. He has spent almost 16 years in Academia doing similar research as well as extensive k20 and rural telecommunications and healthcare projects in Texas. Mr. Flournoy participated in the founding of and served as Interim Chief Information Officer of the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center from 2000 through 2003.

Robert G. Arnold, Ph.D.

Dr. Arnold has in excess of 30 years experience in Research and Advanced Development in the computer and communications areas for military, aerospace, oil and medical industries. He has served both as an individual contributor as well as Technical Director or Program/Project Manager of multi-year developments valued in millions of dollars with commensurate staff levels. He is experienced in all aspects of digital systems from embedded microcontrollers and FPGA’s through large scale supercomputing clusters which were the topic of his doctoral research. His degrees are from Rice University, Houston Tx. ’76, M.EE ‘71, BS ’70. He is the technical lead for the DREAMS™ Project developing a next generation ambulance with high data rate network connectivity over wireless links including Wi-fi, cell modem clusters, and small aperture high bandwidth, high velocity mobile satellite terminals. He is familiar with the emergency medical domain terminology and applications of technology and regulatory requirements. He is the leader for TAMU for the Internet2 Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN). He has supported design and installation of the supercomputing cluster "Brazos."

James Wall, Ph.D.

Dr. Wall is a retired Army Acquisition Corps officer with 22 years of service. His last Army assignment was as a Senior Computer Scientist with the Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. He has extensive experience in command and control systems, distributed simulation environments, and virtual reality applications. A large portion of his current research is related to establishing requirements and developing simulations to support incident management training and emergency response. Dr. Wall holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in System Technology (Command, Control, and Communications) from the Naval Postgraduate School. In October 2005, Dr. Wall was appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M University.

Doug Tindall

Mr. Tindall is a Senior Network Analyst at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He has directed, managed and coordinated all aspects of multi-disciplinary, multi-million dollar federal programs studying the effects and patient care outcomes of ground breaking real-time telemedicine technology, or DREAMS™, applied across corporate and military healthcare networks including air, ground, and rural ambulance operations. His experience highlights interest in building on his experience in telecommunication technology applied to the healthcare industry. Experience includes systems design including operational and technical requirements, human factors engineering, medical device selection and integration, and he has acted as government liaison including drafting legislation, technology demonstrations, and testifying before both the congressional and executive branches.

Christopher Kocmoud

Mr. Kocmoud has led numerous interdisciplinary projects, from mobile telemedicine, modeling and simulation, terrain visualization, system testing, and interactive multimedia visualization. Mr. Kocmoud has served as the software engineer and technical lead for cutting edge mobile telemedicine systems deployed in Texas and Vermont that enable earlier trauma physician intervention. He has also designed real-time and historical patient data visualization techniques for a new wireless medical device capable of predicting lifesaving interventions. Mr. Kocmoud holds a M.S. in Visualization Sciences from Texas A&M University.