USUHS educates, trains, and prepares uniformed services health professionals, officers, and leaders to provide direct support for the Military Health System, the National Security, and National Defense Strategies of the United States. Their focus is to support warfighter and military community readiness to ensure their health and overall well-being. More specifically, AFRRI strives to protect the health of U.S. military personnel through research and training intended to advance the understanding of the effects of ionizing radiation.

USUHS and AFRRI needed a mobile application of a radiological assessment triage tool for emergency response teams. The foundation of the app is based on recognized assessment and treatment principles that enable radiological and nuclear emergency response teams to triage suspected casualties. The application is also intended to serve as a training tool for use in a variety of radiological scenario exercises intended for emergency response preparedness. 

Emergency response professionals extend enormous personal risk on the front lines of radiological disasters and events, and the tools they carry in the field need to be lightweight, efficient, and accurate. We first established an iterative human-centered design process that encompassed several research and design methods, from extensive background research to user testing with first responders. We organized and defined all data points and diagnostic outputs to create a baseline for the app’s information architecture. After creating some rough mock-ups, we produced an interactive, high-fidelity prototype that followed established user interface best practices, style guides and asset creation, content development and 508 compliance recommendations. Once stakeholders approved the prototype, we conducted user testing with first responders whose backgrounds were in various emergency response services. After testing and results reporting, design changes and approvals were finalized, and we created and submitted a robust annotated document to the development team.   

The mFRAT is a mobile application specializing in dose-specific and diagnostic outputs for radiological disasters and events. With this assessment-based mobile tool, emergency response teams can efficiently mobilize in the field and quickly identify exposed individuals to expediate the appropriate medical response.

USUHS educates, trains, and prepares uniformed services health professionals, officers, and leaders to provide direct support for the Military Health System, the National Security, and National Defense Strategies of the United States and the readiness of our armed forces. AFRRI strives to preserve and protect the health and performance of U.S. military personnel through research and training that advance understanding of the effects of ionizing radiation.

USUHS and AFRRI needed a mobile version of a radiological assessment triage tool based on recognized assessment and treatment principles that would enable radiological and nuclear emergency response professionals to triage suspected casualties.

We leveraged our expertise in user-centered design, mobile application development, usability testing, and project management to develop and deliver the mobile First-Responders Radiological Assessment Triage (mFRAT) application. The mFRAT software collects and evaluates data on radiation dose exposure, assesses the probability of exposure without an assigned dose, and indicates when there is no evidence of overexposure. In addition, it generates dose-specific messages addressing reliability and diagnostic information, hospitalization estimations, and mortality projections for each specific case. 

Radiological and nuclear emergency responders now have a mobile tool that gives them dose-specific and diagnostic output with entering only minimal text. The mFRAT tool helps responders quickly differentiate between the concerned public and exposed individuals for the appropriate use of medical resources, which greatly assists the triage process for these emergencies and events.

The USUHS is a worldwide center of excellence for military and public health professions’ education and research. USUHS’s mission is to train, educate, and prepare uniformed services health professionals, officers, and leaders to directly support the Military Health System, the National Security and National Defense Strategies of the United States, and the readiness of our armed forces.

USUHS’s network and data center were outdated to the point that they could no longer meet cybersecurity accreditation requirements. Creating a secure, state-of-the-art network environment required remediating 2,500 computer systems and 45 servers for the university and migrating all computer systems and servers to a new domain and hybrid cloud infrastructure – all while providing normal operational IT support to the university with no impact to end users.

TIAG conducted in-depth interviews with each clinical department to build an interlaced educational support web of applications, systems, and business processes. Once we had a complete understanding of the USUHS environment, we designed a systematic transformation strategy that served as a project roadmap.This included designing and deploying a completely new VLAN architecture for the entire network. We then virtualized old legacy systems and consolidated all USUHS servers into a designated network operations center server room. From there, we completed full documentation on the USUHS IM/IT environment, including systems, applications, and mission critical websites and designed, implemented, and migrated USUHS’s assets to a new .edu network and hybrid Google cloud environment.

The culmination of this effort led to the migration of more than 2,000 personal data repositories, all departmental shared drives, 45 applications, and 5,000 gigabytes of data, all with very little impact and work time outages for the end user. We also provided a more open collaborative environment with teaching universities and organizations and facilitated the hybrid cloud modernization of the USUHS IM/IT environment. At the close of the project, our team was given an award for “exceptional project management, technical coordination, business process consultation, and exemplary user support.”