To meet this challenge, medics' skills are being upgraded from the very start of their training, and the entire DHA is developing or reworking tactics and stratagems to reflect the new reality. Medics' training is changing dramatically in advance of future potential near-peer conflicts. VIRIN: 180816-Z-XH297-1034 Preparing for the Next Fight Under the DHA, the JTS also has expanded the data capture and collection capabilities of its Defense Department Trauma Registry with the addition of special injury registries. The mission of JTS, part of Defense Health Agency, is to improve outcomes for combat casualties from the strategic level down to the scene of conflict through evidence-driven performance improvement. Not being able to get to a surgeon means having to stabilize those patients for longer periods of time at lower levels of care," she explained. "All of those situations make us think that we may need to hold patients at lower levels of care, where you're going to have medics taking care of patients for days - including patients that need surgery. "Africa would be the same type of issue, when we would have overland transport versus water evacuation," Shackelford said. If wounded warriors are unable to get that care, service medics, special operations medics and independent duty corpsmen will "need a lot of skills, such as in administering pain medications, long-term pain control, airway management, and nursing skills like changing dressings - even things like rolling the patient," Shackelford said.Ī near-peer conflict in the Pacific could leave injured warfighters near front lines for days. We are actively evaluating how our teams can remain agile and leverage technology to provide trusted care…anytime, anywhere." Moving patients quickly through that process is essential to saving lives and improving outcomes.įuture conflicts may see medics needing to hold and treat patients in deployed settings for longer periods than in the past.
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The golden hour is the critical time window for trauma patients to receive a series of life-saving interventions - starting at the point of injury and transitioning to handoff to a surgical team. Those conditions likely mean that the golden-hour handoff to a surgical team will not be possible, Shackelford warned. air superiority and vast distances could prohibit quick evacuations. Stacy Shackelford, chief of the Joint Trauma System in Joint Base San Antonio, Texas.
"We're worried about future casualties because those distances are so great," said Air Force Col.
For military medics, this scenario requires a new kind of training, new equipment and a new approach to casualty care. Evacuation to a higher level of care might take several days. That’s especially true for the medics supporting troops on the front lines.įor example, if a Marine was wounded on a remote island in the Pacific, the highest level of care available might be an independent duty corpsman. Wounded troops were rarely far from the life-saving care they needed.īut the next conflict might be very different.Īs the Pentagon prepares today's force for a near-peer fight against a large military adversary, the Military Health System is challenged to provide life-saving support for large-scale and dispersed operations. military had total air superiority and maintained top-tier, in-country trauma centers. And that was a realistic goal, given that the U.S.
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