Biomedical Communications Records

Biomedical Communications (BMC) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) originated in the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute (NPI). The first full-time employee in communications, Van Lear Johnson, a television engineer, was hired in 1956, just a year after NPI opened. NPI then began a series of pioneering projects that demonstrated television's effectiveness in various aspects of psychiatry. Telephone conferences were used to share two-way discussions with Nebraska's three state mental hospitals in an early effort.

In 1957, an Audiovisual Aids Section was created at NPI. Services offered in the new section were photography, 16mm film production, live television, and audiovisual equipment distribution. From 1957 through 1960, the section produced 16mm films. An RF television distribution system was installed in 1959, making possible two-way video and audio links between NPI, the North Building (now Poynter Hall), and the Medical Amphitheater in University Hospital.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, UNMC looked outward to the state and region beyond the campus and upward with significant construction and renovation programs. Two-way television offered one method of outreach. The Nebraska Veterans Administration Television (NEVA-TA) network was established in 1968 through a medical information agreement between UNMC and the Veterans Administration (VA). Funded by the VA, the network initially linked the VA hospitals in Omaha, Lincoln, and Grand Island. Creighton University Health Sciences and the University of Nebraska College of Dentistry was active on the NEVA-TV network.

With extensive construction on campus, new opportunities opened for the use of communications media. Since renamed Wittson Hall, the Basic Science Building opened in 1969 with an internal TV distribution system, making two-way television communications possible from laboratories and teaching spaces there. As construction and renovation progressed, other buildings were added to the two-way campus system. In addition to two-way television, faculty and staff recorded lectures on videotape, allowing students to watch pre-recorded lectures on fundamental instructional topics.

During this period of communications growth on campus, in 1967, the Board of Regents approved establishing a consortium arrangement to grant a Master of Medical Science in Biomedical Communication (MMS) degree. Members of the consortium included the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, several universities around the United States, and the National Library of Medicine.

In 1970, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents created the Biomedical Communications Center to expand services throughout the Medical Center campus. Dr. Reba A. Benschoter, who began her career with NPI as an audiovisual specialist, became the director of the Biomedical Communications Division. The division began moving from NPI to a new Biomedical Communications Center in University Hospital. The 2,400 square foot center housed a 30 by 30-foot control room for television production, a smaller, single-person recording studio, and the facilities to produce instructional material, photographic material, and artwork. The NPI Communications Division remained as a satellite service. It was later joined by BMC satellites in the College of Nursing Learning Resources Center, the Meyer Rehabilitation Institute, the University Geriatric Center, and the School of Allied Health Professions of the College of Medicine. A second BMC center also opened in Swanson Hall.

BMC received a two-year Health Professions Special Project grant from the National Institutes of Health in 1972, which permitted broadening of the division's activities in support of UNMC teaching programs. The grant provided staff and facilities to establish media resource files, expand production capabilities, produce programs, and promote the services.

Like UNMC's education programs, BMC services extended beyond the campus. When the College of Nursing established a division in Lincoln in 1976, a two-way television system coordinated by BMC permitted the two divisions to share classes, meetings, and other activities. That system was superseded in 1990 by the NEB*SAT network. NEB*SAT was a state-owned satellite television system that used a dedicated satellite transponder and fiber optics to transmit many forms of instruction to colleges and universities across Nebraska. BMC supported additional communication projects. The Nebraska Video Conference Network (NVCN) provided communication services to community rooms across Nebraska through two-way compressed video communication. Similarly, to benefit the UNMC-Creighton pediatrics department, a microwave system connected UNMC with the Children's Memorial Hospital and Creighton University. The use of these facilities for health science applications was coordinated by the Biomedical Communications Center at UNMC.

In 1992, UNMC expanded communications education. In addition to the degree of Master of Medical Science in Biomedical Communication (MMS), students could enroll in a Biomedical Communications Specialist training program. The 12-month program, offered in conjunction with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, was supported by a National Library of Medicine grant. In 1996, the University of Nebraska Board of Trustees dissolved the MMS degree and the training program.

Due to increasing costs and more user-friendly technology, in 2003, Information Technology Services (ITS) announced a reorganization and elimination of some services in Biomedical Communications (BMC). BMC graphic artists were merged with the printing and duplicating staff, and professional photography services were eliminated. Video services and classroom technology support were absorbed into a new department called ITS Video Services.

Taken in part from "Beginnings and Growth" grant application summary 1990, probably written by Reba Benschoter and Two-Way Television: Helping the Medical Center Reach Out by Cecil L. Wittson, MD and Reba Benschoter, MS for American Journal of Psychiatry 129:5, November 1972, American Psychiatric Association.