Croatian Diplomats Visited Walter Reed Military Hospital

 

Washington, DC, April 19, 2002 – The staff of the Embassy of Croatia, led by Ambassador Dr. Ivan Grdesic, visited the Walter Reed military hospital. The visit was organized by colonel Ronald Poropatich, the director of the hospital’s telemedicine. The Croatian diplomats were introduced to the history of this respectable hospital and visited some of its departments, including the mobile hospital CASH, whose commander had visited  Croatia during the mid-nineties.

Colonel Poropatich held a presentation on telemedicine, a field where Walter Reed is among the leading hospitals in the U.S. Being a relatively new technique on the market, and using the sophisticated computer and communication technologies, telemedicine offers direct international consultations among experts, assistance and humanitarian aid during disasters or accidents and telelearning. Special care in telemedicine is dedicated to small mobile teams that establish direct communication between the physicians in the field and the headquarters. So far, the experience has shown that the branches of medicine where telemedicine was most needed were dermatology, surgery and radiology, however recent experience also included oncology, cardiology, echo-cardiology, nuclear medicine as well as mental health.

Telemedicine evolved in the U.S. in the seventies and it saw its full development in the nineties with the application of the new technologies and the projects in 1995 financed from the federal sources reached the total of  500 million USD.

Colonel Poropatich will soon visit Croatia where he will be the principal lecturer at the first Croatian conference on telemedicine in Makarska. He says he is extremely interested in cooperation with Croatia, especially with its Defense Ministry.

Croatian diplomats were also received by the commander of the hospital, General Walter Timboe who expressed interest in issues such as the war experience of the Croatian physicians. Ambassador Grdesic said that NATO membership is one of Croatia’s main strategic goals, and that the sector of military medicine is one of the many things that Croatia can offer to NATO and the U.S., due to its own war experience. Apart from that, Ambassador Grdesic said, telemedicine is very useful for Croatia during the tourist season and on the islands.