It’s almost unthinkable, but should Iraqi biological and chemical weapons be used on American soil, one U.S. city is well prepared to react and contain such an emergency.

In the Birmingham, Alabama, metropolitan area, the LifeTrac™ Bio/Chem Alert system has been in operation since last summer.

“Our system identifies bio/chem threats earlier than some of the others that are in development,” said Joe Acker, executive director of the Birmingham Regional Emergency Medical Services System. “Most important, LifeTrac isn’t on the drawing board, it’s up and running right now.”

LifeTrac was developed in a public/private partnership between the Birmingham Regional Emergency Medical Services System, central Alabama hospitals and Forté Incorporated, a software development firm. LifeTrac is available commercially through LifeTrac Technologies.

Unlike warning systems that compile laboratory data, LifeTrac tracks information earlier in the chain of events.

“It takes a lot of time to get diagnoses and lab results,” said Acker. “The cow is long out of the barn by then. Using that analogy, LifeTrac lets you know when the barn door comes open.”

“LifeTrac is not dependent on an exact patient diagnosis or specific identification of the agent,” said Glenn Phillips, president of Forté. “It alerts authorities to the broadest range of biological and chemical incidents at the earliest opportunity so that optimum life-saving action can be taken.”

In peacetime, LifeTrac can be extremely valuable early detection of naturally occurring outbreaks of disease, such as the possible new flu strain spreading in Asia.

LifeTrac Bio/Chem works by monitoring hospital resource availability trends, which are a reflection of changing patient loads, whether they are the result of natural phenomena or caused by biological or chemical terrorism. Upon detection of unusually high demands on hospital resources, LifeTrac immediately triggers an investigatory procedure which can uncover a bio/chem event early in its development.

The design of LifeTrac Bio/Chem Alert is based on technology originally used for monitoring multiple-hospital emergency resources as a decision tool for emergency medical teams transporting trauma and stroke patients. “The core technology was already in place,” Acker said, “so it was readily adaptable for early warning of bio/chem events.”

LifeTrac Bio/Chem Alert has been in operation since last June in the Birmingham, Alabama metropolitan area, which covers six counties and 13 emergency medical departments, serving a population of 1 million people.

One of the strengths of LifeTrac is its economy and speed of implementation. Because of the software’s design, mastering its operation is extremely simple.

“LifeTrac provides bio/chem threat detection with minimal manpower requirements from emergency department or hospital personnel,” Acker said.

“Complete training takes less than a half hour, literally.”

Phillips says that LifeTrac Bio/Chem Alert™ can be operational in any
metropolitan area in a matter of weeks.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

Glenn S. Phillips, Phone: 205.620.0500