Army health system poised to speed injured Soldiers in and out of multi-domain operations

Photo By Stephanie Abdullah | Maj. Gen. Michael J. Talley, Commanding General U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence and Chief of the Army Medical Service Corps speaks on Army Medicine on the multi-domain battlefield at the Army's Warriors Corner booth at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 11, 2022. U.S. Army Photo by Otis Toussaint  

UNITED STATES

10.11.2022

Story by Stephanie Abdullah 

U.S. Army Medical Command

OFFICE OF THE U.S. ARMY SURGEON GENERAL, Falls Church, Va. – The U.S. Army medical system has undergone many changes in recent years. The Department of Defense recently stood up its Defense Health Agency and transferred administration of military treatment facilities to it along with many “shared” functions of the services. At the same time, the Army was re-organizing and “right sizing” its Medical Command. While the U.S. Army Medical Command and the Army’s Office of the Surgeon General would no longer be responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Army’s hospitals and clinics, it would now be laser focused on ensuring the Army had Soldiers and medical personnel prepared to go into battle when called upon. The Army Surgeon General refers to this shift as the “pivot to readiness.” Combat casualty care is integral in that pivot.

“We've enjoyed the last 20 years plus of combat operations, knowing that whenever someone was injured… whenever we had a casualty occur on the battlefield…usually within a golden hour, they were transported back to definitive care,” said Maj. Gen. Michael J. Talley, Commanding General U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence and Chief of the Army Medical Service Corps. “And we've had our most successful casualty rates or sustainment rates in the history of combat--the lowest fatality rates ever. But when you look at what we're going to endure in the future operating environment, we can't think for one moment that it'll be the same type of results or the same type of golden window that we've always enjoyed.”

According to Defense News, the Army defines multi-domain operations as “the combined arms employment of capabilities from all domains that create and exploit relative advantages to defeat enemy forces, achieve objectives and consolidate gains during competition, crisis, and armed conflict.” Simply put, the operational environment includes not just air, land, and sea, but space and cyberspace as well. When it comes to taking care of injured Soldiers, the Army is laser focused, no matter the battlefield.

Talley said three areas are driving the Army’s doctrine on combat casualty care--clearing the battlefield, returning injured Soldiers to duty, and accomplishing both of those in an environment of contested logistics.

“[Our concept of operations for 2028] provides us four key areas that we need to focus on,” said Col. James Jones, PhD, Director, Medical Capability Development and Integration Directorate at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. “One of them is medical C2 (intelligence); how do we communicate effectively from the point of need all the way to the theater medical command? We also have the need to make sure that anything we do enables the operating force. The key desire is to make sure that all of our technology and our implementations influence the things that win wars and take care of people, which is our number one priority,” he said.

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Jones gave a “Warriors Corner” presentation at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in October entitled ‘Army Medicine in Multi-Domain Operations.’ He said that in order to provide excellence in combat casualty care in future battles and competitions, the Army will need autonomous resupply systems that are AI (artificial intelligence) enabled. He says those types of capabilities will help the Army optimize evacuation and maximize return to duty rates.

“We know that is the future,” Jones said.

The joint concept will not just include the Army but integrate the other services as well.

“Technology will help us to integrate jointly across the system to make sure that we're able to take care of our people. The experimentation that we're going to do will allow us to define what those requirements will be -- that will help ensure that the Army health system is capable of meeting those requirements of our Soldiers, Sailors and our other partners that are going to be a part of the Joint Allied Force. We understand that our partners are going to be key to our success,” Jones said.

Jones said that the Army’s goal is to be able to maximize the medical care it is able to provide combat casualties from the “point of need” and all through the evacuation process; how they get casualties off the battlefield is integral.

“The evacuation piece is going to be critical in the future,” said Jones. ”We're going to focus on medical evacuation -- autonomously and casualty evacuation. We want to make sure that we integrate the medical common operating picture to give us a single-site picture of our health system -- where we know where the patient is from the point of need all the way back. We will also be focused on both preventing and treating chemical and biological nuclear effects. We are going to make sure we know how our maneuver commanders are going to fight, and how we are going to deliver that soft power that's going to maximize return to duty rates.”

• Date Taken: 10.11.2022
• Date Posted: 11.10.2022 13:50
• Story ID: 433092
• Location: US