1971: NASA brings telemedicine to Tohono O’odham

NASA launches the first satellite dedicated to telemedicine. The space agency partners with the Indian Health Service to develop an innovative telemedicine project called Space Technology Applied to Rural Papago Advanced Health Care, in collaboration with the Papago (known today as the Tohono O’odham). A modified recreational vehicle travels among reservation villages and beams patients’ x-rays to doctors hundreds of miles away.

“Patients’ vital data can be sent via a telecommunications network to physicians monitoring consoles in the hospital. Television and x-ray pictures may also be transmitted. The physician can see, talk with, and, in a figurative sense, ‘touch’ the patient. The physician makes a diagnosis and specifies treatment to be performed in the Mobile Health Unit.” —“Manned Space Flight Benefits,” a report by NASA

Theme

Federal-Tribal Relations

Region

Southwest