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Active TRL 4 (started at 4, targeting 8)
Exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit will experience significant communication delays and communication black outs that will necessitate asynchronous, increasingly Earth-independent provision of medical care to onboard crew. In this new paradigm, the Crew Medical Officer (CMO), other Crewmembers, and ground support will have to quickly, efficiently, and independently, view medical data, make decisions, and relay important information. Currently, the NASA electronic health record (EHR) is intended only for ground use and is not accessible to in-mission crew for medical decision support and communication. An EHR capable of providing the crew with access to their medical data in-flight, medical store-and-forward communications to sync data with a ground EHR, and medical administrative tools for scheduling or messaging with medical operational support on the ground is critical in enabling NASA’s standard of healthcare during increasingly autonomous operations.
The Exploration Medical Integrated Product Team (XMIPT) developed and reviewed objectives, concept of operations, and preliminary high-level requirements for an exploration EHR (xEHR) with project stakeholders. Subject matter experts from across the Agency then contributed to the development of the xEHR system requirements. Following ground testing, the xEHR will conduct a demonstration on a future exploration vehicle such as Gateway.
Ground demonstrations of the Chiron program software have been held and revisions made based on feedback. The project conducted an SRR in fall 2024 and is in the process of incorporating additional features and functionality, user interface enhancements, and integration with CHP-IDSP.
The xEHR's availability in-mission would provide increased access and awareness of crew to their own health status and allow for more autonomous operations regarding healthcare in a communication delayed setting. Planned integration with the Crew Health and Performance Integrated Data System Platform (CHP-IDSP) would further enhance autonomous operations by informing decisions and utilizing advanced analytics like medical decision support tools.
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