Scientific Advancement

Walter Reed Army Medical Center

linicians at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have taken a radical approach to health care-make the patient an integral part of the process. By using Web technologies, medical center staff found a way to promote better communication between patients and practitioners and improve treatment.

Through the HEALTHeFORCES program, patients at three Washington area medical centers-Walter Reed, Fort Meade's Kimbrough Ambulatory Care Center and Fort Belvoir's DeWitt Army Community Hospital-use a Web browser to provide physicians with detailed background and lifestyle data. Then the clinician and patient review treatment options that affect the patient's daily activities, and vice versa. The program also permits patients to grade their care.

"Patients should have an understanding that the care they receive meets national standards," says Col. Jill Phillips, the HEALTHeFORCES program director. "If we haven't gotten the job done, you have red marks and not green." Since launching HEALTHeFORCES in 2000, Walter Reed has reduced emergency room visits by 24 percent and decreased hospitalizations by 56 percent.

-Matthew Weinstock

WHY IT WON

Helped improve treatment and disease management.

WHY IT'S INNOVATIVE

Ensures that patients have an active say in their treatment.

WHAT DIFFERENCE IT HAS MADE

Significantly improved treatment at Army medical centers.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

ildfires, droughts, floods and other ecosystem-disrupting events result from swings in ocean temperature in the Equatorial Pacific. The temperature variations create conditions known as La Niña, which is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures, and El Niño, characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures. Measuring these variations and disseminating them to the scientific community worldwide is central to anticipating and managing potentially catastrophic climate changes.

Through a network of 70 buoys moored deep in the ocean, the Tropical Atmosphere Ocean project at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration transmits vital oceanographic and meteorological data to ground stations in real time via satellites. The data are then posted to a continuously updated Web site available to the public.

The importance of the data provided by the TAO project is evident in the 22 million hits the Web site received last year and the more than 100,000 customized data files the project provided to researchers.

-Katherine McIntire Peters

WHY IT WON

Allowed real-time collection and dissemination of high-quality oceanographic data critical to monitoring, forecasting and understanding swings in climate associated with El Niño and La Niña.

WHY IT'S INNOVATIVE

Data are updated every day and are available to the public at no charge.

WHAT DIFFERENCE IT HAS MADE

Routine weather forecasts throughout the world incorporate the data generated by the TAO buoys.