An overview of the AKAMAI telemedicine project: a Pacific perspective

Project AKAMAI is a congressionally mandated, Department of Defense (DOD) medical research and development program sponsored by Tripler Army Medical Center (TAMC), aimed at applying and assessing the value of telemedicine technologies. Located in the Pacific Region, the project faces the challenge of extreme distances and significant time zone differences. Project AKAMAI is committed to applying emerging technology with a clinical focus to enhance telemedicine and projecting the medical specialty expertise of Tripler to remote sites in the Pacific. This project has significant readiness and humanitarian implications in the region. TAMC is conducting ongoing telemedicine operations supporting the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Palau, Schofield Barracks, Honolulu VA, Hickam Air Force Base, Diego Garcia and multiple DOD sites in Korea and Japan. Additionally, AKAMAI is engaged in a variety of clinical research projects utilizing emerging technologies. Project AKAMAI is the definition phase of an eventual virtual hospital network servicing the entire Pacific Region, and is working to verify a vision for 21st century health care delivery.