Developing the Mobile Medical Vehicle of the Future

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By Eric Wicklund

Mass General Brigham and the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah are taking part in a federally funded project to create a mobile medical vehicle designed to deliver hospital-level care in rural communities across the country.

The health systems are two of several partners in the Platform Accelerating Rural Access to Distributed & Integrated Medical (PARADIGM) care program overseen by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

PARADIGM “aims to address the current challenges in rural health by creating a scalable vehicle platform that can provide advanced medical services outside of a hospital setting,” the project’s website states. “Building on recent developments in fields ranging from satellite communication to medical device miniaturization, this mobile care platform will allow health providers to meet rural patients where they are.”

“If successful, PARADIGM hopes to develop a mobile platform capable of delivering many different types of cutting-edge services – including multi-cancer screenings, hemodialysis, perinatal care, and much more,” the website continues. “With medical technology no longer tied to a specific place – but instead available on a platform that can travel to even the most remote locations – rural patients will thus be able to access the care that they need within their own communities.”

  1. Designing distributed hospital-level care;
  2. Producing an integrated care delivery platform;
  3. Harmonizing diverse medical device data within a single system;
  4. Building a miniaturized, ruggedized CT scanner; and
  5. Creating intelligent task guidance software to help health workers perform activities beyond their usual training.

Mass General Brigham is due to receive three of the 12 contracts for the project.

  • David Levine, MD, MPH, MA, clinical director of Research & Development at Mass General Brigham Healthcare at Home and director of Ariadne Labs’ Home Hospital Program, will lead a team developing the DEMOCRATIZE mobile clinical platform for rural care delivery, designed to operate independent of the physical location of rural home hospital programs.
  • Julian Goldman, MD, FASA, an anesthesiologist, director of the Medical Device Interoperability & Cybersecurity Program at Mass General Hospital and medical director of Mass General Brigham Biomedical Engineering, will lead a team tasked with creating a scalable platform, called PARADIGM-ICE, that will integrate data from medical devices and EHR systems into a secure, standardized ecosystem.
  • Rajiv Gupta, MD, PhD, vice chair of Clinical Operations in the Department of Radiology, an associate radiologist in the Divisions of Neuroradiology and Cardiovascular Imaging, and director of the Advanced X-Ray Imaging Sciences (AXIS) Center at Mass General Hospital, will lead a team developing a compact, lightweight, rugged and self-shielded CT scanner for use in resource-restrained environments.

The Huntsman Cancer Institute, meanwhile, will be modifying its Huntsman at Home program, a Hospital at Home care model for rural patients in cancer treatment programs, to operate through a mobile medical vehicle that includes advanced imaging, testing and treatment capabilities.

  • The University of Michigan, which will use its VIGIL platform to equip care providers with AI-guided task support for specialized services;
  • The Mission Mobile Medical Group of Greensboro, North Carolina, which will integrate its care delivery platform, a pod-based modular health service that can be dropped into remote locations like cargo containers on a train to deliver remote care services;
  • Homeward Health of Kentwood, Michigan, which will develop a mobile care model using community engagement, human-centered design and partnerships;
  • 10XBeta, of Brooklyn, New York, which will develop an interchangeable modular care infrastructure to support multiple uses cases;
  • Planned Systems International (PSI), of Columbia, Maryland, which will leverage a multi-purpose vehicle platform and unique “arm and rack” design to facilitate rural clinical workflows;
  • SRI International, of Menlo Park, California, which will use both its POET medical interoperability platform, designed to integrate diverse medical devices in resource-constrained environments, and its Multi-Tags system, which uses machine-learning and large language models to support clinicians across multiple tasks; and
  • Micro-X, of SeaTac, Washington, which will use its lightweight, carbon nanotube-based CT scanner, designed for mobile imaging care in underserved communities and radiology deserts.