INDUSTRY INTERVIEW

As Managing Director of the Health Informatics and Telemedicine Systems
Group at PSI, Cindy Trutanic directs a strategic marketing and business
planning staff of consultants and research associates.  Established in 1997
and originally focused on marketing C4ISR technologies to the national
security community, PSI expanded its portfolio to information technologies
in health care in mid-1998.

An attorney specializing in telecommunications and health care, Mrs.
Trutanic was appointed to the Federal Communications Commission's Advisory
Committee on Health and Telecommunications in 1996.  She has also served as
an advisor to the Office of the Vice President and to Mrs. Gore on health
related issues as well to the Joint Working Group on Telemedicine in the
Department of Health and Human Services.

Q: What trends and challenges do you see and potential solutions to
effecting access to quality health care in the military?

A: Access to, and delivery of, quality health services will require that
government agencies be receptive to, and creative in, acquiring emerging
medical technologies funded by the private sector which meet specific needs
in the public sector.  Quite frankly, some of these technologies also need
to find ready audiences among the traditional health affairs prime
contractors.

The dramatic increase in healthcare costs ($10 billion over last year's
spending levels) make it imperative to identify and acquire technologies
which efficiently and effectively satisfy the demands of health policy
initiatives of the DoD, the VA, and other federal agencies that are
addressing health care.

Q: How do you accomplish this?

A: My partners and I are working with a very select group of health
informatics and telemedicine systems companies to facilitate opportunities
for them to present their technologies to key officials in both the
legislative and the executive branches.  Our mission is almost the reverse
of the technology transfer program that the Department of Defense initiated
several years ago.  We're trying to support these federal health
initiatives from the private sector by identifying the technologies that
meet the stated medical needs of the DoD or the VA and help create
public-private partnerships and guide them to a successful objective.
Basically we come at this challenge from two angles.  The first one is we
provide management consulting to our clients both in the strategic planning
and the marketing arenas. We will help a client migrate their proven
technology from the commercial sector to the military medical sector or the
public health sector, and articulate the policy or requirement against
which these commercial applications are going to be operating.  Such a
company is Spacelabs Medical/Intesys, which is well recognized as a
manufacturer of medical monitoring devices, but not well known in the
government arena for its clinical information systems. Without a sense of
where the overall policies are, a commercial corporation that hasn't been
in the government marketplace before might not understand the dynamics
involved in trying to solve a particular medical problem in the military.
For example, addressing immunization needs of a transient military
population and categorizing those needs is an immediate health problem.
We also want to migrate those health informatics and telemedicine systems
technologies which have successfully met military medical requirements but
have yet to be introduced to the commercial or non-federal government
health care sector.  It's a two-way street, and we want to be that
facilitator both ways.

Q: Do you actively look for companies with technologies for which you know
that there is a niche or marketplace that is not being fulfilled?

A: What we are trying to do is to get the need and the solution more
closely aligned. About five years ago there were a lot of solutions that
were solutions for technology's sake, but had no bearing on the actual
medical need that might have required it.  The other focus of our firm is
to help companies that have technologies that we've identified meeting a
stated need and helping them to acquire financing to get them to the next
level.  We're not venture capitalists.  What we're doing is helping them to
find financial assistance to grow exponentially by virtue of the technology
which we believe has great potential.

We just arranged a financing for one of our clients, MemberLink Systems,
Inc., a small software developer in the process of installing both an
immunization as well as a cardiology information management system at
Walter Reed.  In order to get to the next level of expanding their
marketplace they needed financing and marketing expertise, and we're
providing both.  The other important guideline that we have as an
organization is that the technologies we pick must fit in with our overall
view of what the medical needs are.  For example, the Personnel Information
Carrier program is from our point of view,  of enormous potential, well
beyond the military.  We have a client, Emerging Medical Technologies Inc.,
which has a solution which we think is superior to the other ones we have
evaluated.

Q: Where in the government have you found responsive organizations willing
to advance emerging technologies in the military healthcare arena?

A: I've had a lot of good interaction with several different agencies.
Recently I was in a discussion with [Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Health Affairs] Dr. Sue Bailey concerning advanced technologies and was
gratified to hear her emphasize the importance of the exchange of ideas
between industry and the DoD, because industry has applications helpful to
DoD right now.  She's very interested in having this kind of dialogue
continue.  That's very positive.

I've also found a high degree of responsiveness at the Casualty Care
Research Center at Bethesda, and at the Telemedicine and Technology
Research Center at Ft.  Detrick, where, I should also note, the Army
Surgeon General Ron Blanck has correctly put renewed emphasis.
All of these efforts are helping to facilitate the acceptance of COTS
technologies.  Why should DoD reinvent the wheel? The whole purpose behind
this reverse technology transfer program, if you will, is to advance the
quality of military medicine on the basis of health information and
telemedicine systems technologies developed in the private sector.