On February 13, Flight Medics and En Route Critical Care Nurses (ECCN) from Charlie Company, 7-101st General Support Aviation Battalion (EAGLE DUSTOFF) made Army Medicine history by hosting the first U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) Joint Theater Trauma System (JTTS) Casualty Care Conference from a deployed medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) company.
The weekly theater conference provides Tri-Service healthcare providers with a platform for discussing the combat casualty care delivered to our Wounded Warriors across the Military Health System (MHS) continuum, from Point of Injury (POI), to far-forward resuscitative surgical capabilities, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, and ultimately military treatment facilities (MTF) in the Continental United States (CONUS).
"Conducting the weekly Thursday Theater Casualty Care conference from EAGLE DUSTOFF is groundbreaking. The weekly Thursday Theater Casualty Care Conference has never been conducted from a DUSTOFF unit. It is only fitting that a 101st unit lead the way," said Col. Kirby Gross, U.S. CENTCOM JTTS director.
The rigorous nature and quickness of the Army's MEDEVAC mission demands an ability to implement immediate lifesaving measures in a restricted space and time-frame from Flight Medics and ECCNs. At times it is difficult to understand the roles of medical care during a seven-minute POI MEDEVAC (occasionally under enemy fire) or a two-hour tail-to-tail casualty transfer at night in a remote forward operating base.
Hosting the weekly conference provided deployed EAGLE DUSTOFF flight medics and ECCNs with an opportunity to understand the relationship between their interventions in the back of a HH-60M MEDEVAC helicopter and the combat casualty care delivered at POI and throughout the military health system continuum. For instance, a patent peripheral intravenous catheter inserted on a polytrauma casualty during a POI MEDEVAC allows healthcare providers caring for that casualty at Role 3 to transfuse lifesaving blood components that might stabilize and improve the patient's survivability at a higher level of care.
Furthermore, hosting the weekly theater conference exposed EAGLE DUSTOFF flight medics and ECCNs deployed throughout Afghanistan to the mission and goals of the JTTS. By sharing specific interventions and knowledge gained, performance improvement may be implemented across the roles of medical care. In the same manner, these professional discussions represent the foundation for evidence-based revisions to our JTTS clinical practice guidelines.
EAGLE DUSTOFF's contributions to the conference underscore the importance of an integrated, multidisciplinary approach for the improvement of tactical combat casualty care and patient outcomes.
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