The 9th annual meeting of the American Telemedicine Association took place at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida on May 2-5, 2004. The meeting was filled with presentations, exhibits and networking among a diverse group of attendees representing every corner of the United States and 38 other countries. The University of South Florida offered Continuing Education Credits for meeting attendees.

Educational Programs
Reflecting the growing and diverse interest in telemedicine, the meeting included over 300 peer-reviewed oral and poster presentations covering 35 subject areas from Business Planning to Mental Health to Wireless Applications. Presentations at the meeting also included 8 short and long courses, sessions held by partner organizations and exhibitor/customer case studies.

Three new program tracks were added to the educational sessions: home telehealth, ocular telehealth, and managing telemedicine programs. The large number of presentations in each of these areas is another indication of the varied growth and vitality of the telemedicine field.

ATA President Ronald Weinstein, MD opened the meeting at a plenary on Sunday afternoon. The opening session included an address by Thomas Byron Thames, MD, a member of the AARP Board of Directors who announced AARP's strong support for telemedicine and interest in working with ATA in obtaining expanded Medicare coverage for telemedical services. In addition, a live video link was established between Tampa, Honolulu, Hawaii and Sacramento, California for a visit with a young patient at Shriner's Children Hospital in Hawaii and her doctor in California.

Monday's general session included a keynote address by Penny Jennett, PhD, President of the Canadian Society of Telehealth and MG Lester Martinez-Lopez, Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command who also played a taped message from LTG James B. Peake, Surgeon General, US Army, Commander, U.S. Army Medical Command. At the end of the session, the Army's General Maxwell Thurman Award was given to Samuel Ward Cascells III, from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston, TX.

Tuesday's general session included the Kenneth Bird Annual Distinguished Lecture given this year by Jay H. Sanders, MD, President Emeritus, American Telemedicine Association and President & CEO, The Global Telemedicine Group and a keynote address by William K. Sullivan, MD, CPC who just departed as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Also during that session, the ATA Presidents Awards were announced as well as the Telemedicine Journal and e-Health Award. The 2004 ATA President's Award for the Advancement of Telemedicine was awarded to the Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN) based in Anchorage, AK. The 2004 ATA Leadership Award for the Advancement of Telemedicine was awarded to Sam Burgiss, PhD, Knoxville, TN. The 2004 Innovation Award was given to two organizations: MedAire and VISICU, Inc. The Journal Award was given to the paper titled: "Telemedicine Accuracy in Hypertension Management."

Wednesday's Annual Policy Breakfast and Business meeting included remarks by the current ATA President Ronald S. Weinstein, MD and an update on the state of the Association by ATA Executive Director Jonathan D. Linkous. Reports were provided from each of the SIGs and the meeting ended with remarks from Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, the incoming President of ATA.

Many of the slides and other handouts from each of the concurrent and plenary presentations are available here.

Special Interest Groups and Chapters
Further evidence of ATA's success as well as the maturation of telemedicine generally was demonstrated in the growth of the Association's Special Interest Groups (SIG). The SIGs hosted breakfast forums on two mornings at the meeting and several sponsored tutorials as well. SIG leaders gave their annual reports at the Annual Business Meeting including their agendas for the coming year and proposals for wider adoption by the ATA. All SIGs reported a large turnout at their forums, and all proposed an active agenda for programs and activities for the coming year. These include special meetings, development of policy and clinical guidelines and discussion groups. To support these expanded efforts, individual Internet list servers and web pages are available for each SIG for communication among the members.

The Pacific Islands Chapters of ATA held a meeting of their members in attendance as well as others from Hawaii via telephone on Monday. On Tuesday, the new Latin American & Caribbean Chapter held an organizational meeting with over 35 people in attendance.

Exhibits
Attendees visiting the exhibition hall were able to visit booths by 94 organizations displaying the latest developments in technology and services. Commercial firms occupied over 175 booth spaces to display their products and services. Exhibitors included a wide range of companies including device manufacturers, system developers, communications and technology companies, and medical networking consultants. Over 20 new products or services were announced during the show. Five different vehicles used in providing remote medical services for emergency response were on display. A Federal Center included the participation of eight federal agencies. Of special note, the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center had on display a number of advance technology applications used to provide medical care to military personnel as well as technology that had been transferred into civilian use. Included in the display was a "Striker" advance combat ambulance, computer-driven surgical robots, and hand-held vital sign monitors.

MEDRED
Also on the exhibit floor, was MEDRED (Medical Disaster Response Demonstration). MEDRED is a demonstration of civilian & military applications of telemedicine and related technologies used in disaster response designed for applicability to both natural disasters and homeland defense threats. The demonstration depicted how local, regional, state and national authorities can integrate telemedicine technologies into their response to a disaster situation. The demonstration featured the use of telemedicine devices, software and systems that can be used to respond to a simulated event and will depict the effectiveness of integrating telemedicine into various levels of response to the threat using existing local emergency management, state public health, regional emergency operations and national responders using available military assets.

Sandwiched between MEDRED and the TATRC exhibits, was a blood drive tent staffed by Florida Blood Services. Over 50 people provided pints of blood during the meeting.

ATA is planning on a number of educational events over the next year. For a listing click here. The 2005 Annual Meeting will be held April 17-20, 2005 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

Thanks to ALL for making
ATA 2004 a success!