Editor’s Note: The following is part of a series on the history of Massachusetts General Hospital from our intern, Andrew Glyman. Andrew is digging into the back archives of the hospital’s 200+ year history to find some of the interesting, inspiring and unusual stories that have helped to shape the hospital’s past, present and future.

On Oct. 4, 1960, a commercial airliner taking off from Logan International Airport in Boston struck a flock of starlings shortly after liftoff. The plane crashed into Winthrop Harbor from an altitude of approximately 120 feet.

The crash had tragic consequences. While many of the passengers were killed on impact, some with critical injuries died due to delays in receiving medical care.

Those delays were due in part to a traffic jam that developed as hundreds of curious onlookers drove to the crash site, preventing survivors from being transported to the hospitals in downtown Boston for treatment.

The compounding of the tragedy due to traffic highlighted the need for a medical clinic at Logan Airport. Three years later, the Massachusetts Port Authority and Massachusetts General Hospital teamed up to open a medical station there.

The Launch of Telemedicine

A few years later, traffic between the airport and the hospital once again played a role in the development of telemedicine.

In 1967, Mass General physician Kenneth Bird, MD, was moonlighting as medical director at Logan Airport, which meant he often had to travel back and forth to see patients.

The airport is only 3.5 miles from the hospital, but at the time there was only the Sumner Tunnel to get there from downtown Boston. Bird would often get stuck in terrible traffic, and the short drive would often take an hour each way.

The traffic tie-ups so frustrated Bird that it gave him an idea to put a camera at Logan and a camera at Mass General so he could examine patients via television.

With the help of WGBX-TV and funding from federal grants, a connection was made between the airport and the hospital via two microwave dishes, and the audiovisual “tele-diagnostic” clinic opened in April 1968.

It was Bird who coined the term “telemedicine,” defining it as “the practice of medicine without the usual physician-patient physical confrontation, or the practice of medicine via interactive television.

Testing the Process

In the first feasibility study of the new system, airport employees and passengers were seen via two-way television, with nurses assisting patients at Logan Airport and doctors consulting from Mass General.

The first 200 patients examined via the telediagnosis link were also examined in person by a physician at the medical station. In 96 percent of cases, the on-site physician said his findings would be similar to those provided remotely from Mass General.

Telemedicine had several applications that sprung from its initial use, including:

● Telepsychiatry

● Teledermatology

● Televised X-rays

● Long distance lab tests

● Real time hospital-to-hospital communication

Telepyschiatry in Action

In 1974, Mass General psychiatrist Thomas Dwyer, MD, used the hospital’s telemedicine system to remotely treat a patient at Logan Airport who was experiencing severe psychiatric distress.

The case involved a truck driver who injured his hand when making a delivery near the airport. The driver was was brought to the Logan medical station for treatment, and as a nurse was treating his wound, the injured man started to make threats about shooting people.

An emergency message was flashed to the hospital and a specially trained nurse at the Logan medical station tried to calm the man down.

She was eventually able to get him into the TV room, where Dwyer was able to talk to him directly from Mass General.

With Dwyer’s prompting, the trucker began to talk about the personal problems he was experiencing that were contributing to his distress.

As the conversation continued, the man calmed down and agreed to go to a hospital to seek outpatient psychiatric treatment.

Telemedicine Today

The Logan clinic closed in the 1970s due to cuts in federal funding, but the practice of telemedicine has continued.

After decades of slow but steady progress, telemedicine use jumped exponentially at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an approximately 80% spike during the first few months of 2020.

Since then, it has continued to be popular among patients and providers. A recent analysis shows that overall telehealth use is still up by more than 40% from the pre-COVID-19 baseline.

A recent report found that while many patients still prefer in-person care, telehealth is increasingly popular for primary care and mental healthcare and that 90 percent of respondents indicated their telehealth experience was either “good or excellent.”

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Research at Massachusetts General Hospital is interwoven through more than 30 different departments, centers and institutes. Our research includes fundamental, lab-based science; clinical trials to test new drugs, devices and diagnostic tools; and community and population-based research to improve health outcomes across populations and eliminate disparities in care.
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