Expeditionary medical operations provides top-notch care

  • Published
  • By By Lt. Col. Scott Hale
  • Commander, 2d Medical Support Squadron
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  The Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) exists to organize, train, and equip medical forces to provide rapid response to combatant commanders, and to manage peacetime health services. Speed and the global nature of their reach and perspective is what distinguishes the AFMS core competencies from the core competencies of other services.

These dedicated professionals provide global agile, responsive, and flexible, cutting-edge medical services in war, at home and for civilian relief. Since the end of the Cold War, the AFMS has transformed into a light, lean, life-saving, and mobile expeditionary medical force. AFMS capability has evolved from the fixed facility, 500-bed contingency hospitals of the Cold War, into lightweight, rapidly deployable, modular systems known as Expeditionary Medical Support (EMEDS), which can build up to the Air Force Theater Hospital like the one at Balad Air Base, Iraq.

Expeditionary medical operations are supported by modularized medical assets that provide health service tailored to the contingency. These systems ensure medical teams can deploy quickly, incrementally build capability to support any scenario, provide on-scene medical support for the duration of the operation, with minimal airlift requirements.

Medical doctrine has evolved from a return-to-duty focus to an emphasis on evacuate and replace. Coupled with a modularized, critical-care capable aeromedical evacuation system, the AFMS is able to provide life and limb saving medical support to personnel wherever they are deployed, and if necessary, expeditiously evacuate them back to fixed facility medical care. As a result, American wounded warriors have the lowest died from wounds rate in history.

Commanders and AFMS leadership must continue to focus on human performance, sustainment, and enhancement of air and space operators in all operational environments. The AFMS is fully integrated into the line commander's team to accomplish the wing's mission, ensuring combat-capable forces are healthy, and protected from disease and injury. Force Health Protection, a proactive doctrine, is a "total life-cycle" health support system that addresses all health-related threats affecting the combat force and the supporting community before, during, and after deployment. This support has lead to a historical low in disease non-battle injuries for service members.

Battlefield medicine has improved since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, vastly improved since Desert Storm, and bears little resemblance to what was practiced in Vietnam and Korea. Survival rates for service members have reached 98 percent, and surgical procedures in deployed locations rival any performed in trauma centers stateside. This is accomplished through training and standardization of care. Standardization alone has improved throughput capacity at deployed hospitals like the one in Balad. The sheer number of incoming casualties might have shut down a trauma center in the U.S. For example, typical level 1 trauma centers stateside might see 2,000 admissions a year--Balad's hospital sees 8,000.

Medical readiness is the primary role of the AFMS and must be ready to support the broad spectrum of military operations. Medics are committed to training capabilities that support the full spectrum of care in a joint environment. To shape the world and create favorable conditions for peace and stability, military medical personnel must not only be prepared to rapidly and efficiently deploy for major theater war but trained and equipped to perform humanitarian and civic assistance with coalition allies throughout the world.

These professionals are dedicated players in the most effective joint casualty care system in history. They're supporting today's fight and will be ready for tomorrow's challenges in air, space and cyberspace.