Medics employ transportable life support unit.

The Life Support for Trauma Transport System--built by Integrated Medical Systems Inc., of Spring Hill, Calif.--looks like a stretcher, but it is really a portable intensive care unit.

About 5 inches thick, it comes with a ventilator, oxygen, suction, fluid and drug infusion pumps, physiological monitor and a host of other capabilities that provide medical professionals, in and out of the field, timely information about the patient's condition.

LSTATs can be connected to computer networks, allowing patient information to be transmitted for remote consultations.

The system was developed after Operation Desert Storm highlighted the problem of transporting casualties over long distances. LSTAT is designed to "provide continuity of care throughout the entire evacuation process," said Fred Pierce, chief of the Resuscitative Medicine Department at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Currently, 22 LSTATs are in operation, nine are deployed with Army combat support hospitals in Iraq.

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