What are the latest technological advances helping team doctors do their jobs? Find out from Matthew Matava, M.D., president of the NFL Physicians Society. He tells OTW, “Improved communication and a more rapid response pretty much sums up our most recent progress in the technological realm. The sidelines are so crowded—53 players, 10 coaches, trainers, the media, etc.—we needed someone above it all to assess the field from an enhance perspective. We now have what’s called an ‘eye in the sky’—a certified athletic trainer at the press box level who peruses the entire field. Those of us on the sidelines can’t always see an injury until after the fact, so the trainer calls down to the sidelines and speaks to the head physician. He might say, ‘#42 was staggering as he came out of the tackle.’ Then I can pull the player aside and question him or use the new sideline video monitor to review the event from multiple angles, in slow motion, and even backwards.”
“Often, the player doesn’t know what exactly is causing the pain. He may be holding his shoulder, but in reality it could be an elbow injury. This is why it is so helpful to see the replay…it can be useful in guiding the questioning and examination of the player.”
“In addition, we now have two-way walkie talkies and everyone on the medical team has headsets that allow for immediate communication. If I’m at the 20 yard line and the head athletic trainer is at the other end of the field evaluating a player, then he doesn’t have to send someone to me to give me that information. As of just one year ago we didn’t have these walkie talkies. Also, if the player goes for an X-ray and we are wondering about his status, I can call someone in X-ray on the walkie talkie and say, ‘What does it show?’ Then I can relay that to the head coach and the athletic trainer.”
“Another significant technological advance for the NFL has been the league-wide use of electronic medical records (EMR). We have each player’s records on eClinicalWorks. If a player is traded from a team or gets cut then the original team no longer has access to the records. The players were initially concerned about their information being leaked, but the firewalls have proven to be more secure than paper records.”
“If there is an injury, we also now have electronic hand-held tablets on the sidelines containing all of the players’ prior orthopedic injuries. This involves a real time app where in five minutes we can thoroughly assess a player for a concussion and can compare the current injury to the previous baseline testing scores. Other health information is there as well (medication allergies, etc.) in the event that the player has to be transported to the hospital.”
“In terms of research, investigators are placing sensors in helmets in order to track the forces involved in hits to the head. Unfortunately, we don’t yet know what the threshold is for injury. If we put a monitor on a helmet and after 6 games and 200 head hits there might be 20% rotational hits, 30% direct blows, and 40% to the top of the head…but we don’t have a correlation as to which of the hits are relevant and what is the threshold that will lead to long term injury.
