Military medicine
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Deployment-limiting medical conditions are the primary reason why service members are not medically ready. Service-specific standards guide clinicians in what conditions are restrictive for duty, fitness, and/or deployment requirements. The Air Force (AF) codifies most standards in the Medical Standards Directory (MSD). Providers manually search this document, among others, to determine if any standards are violated, a tedious and error-prone process. Digitized, standards-based decision-support tools for providers would ease this workflow. This study digitized and mapped all AF occupations to MSD occupational classes and all MSD standards to diagnosis codes and created and validated a readiness decision support system (RDSS) around this mapping. ⋯ This study demonstrated key pilot steps to digitizing and mapping AF readiness standards to existing terminologies. The RDSS showed one potential application. The sensitivity between the SMEs and RDSS demonstrated its viability as a screening tool with further refinement and study. However, its performance was not evenly distributed by special duty status or for the indication of specific restrictions. With machine consumable medical standards integrated within existing digital infrastructure and clinical workflows, RDSSs would remove a significant administrative burden from providers and likely improve the accuracy of readiness metrics.
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Consistent procedural volume is important for emergency physicians (EPs) to maintain opportunities for critical lifesaving skills. While non-EP literature demonstrates improved patient outcomes with higher volumes, few studies examine the optimal number of repetitions needed to maintain procedural competency in EP populations. The largely young, healthy active duty population that constitutes the majority of patients in military treatment facilities (MTFs) decreases the likelihood to utilize emergent procedures. Despite this likelihood, EPs are expected to maintain proficiency and readiness to perform critical procedures in deployed settings. ⋯ This retrospective analysis demonstrates a significant variation in procedural volumes across MTFs, illustrating disproportionate opportunities for procedural skill maintenance among Army EPs. Low procedural volume threatens the maintenance of critical EP skills. These numbers could also suggest low skills for other providers (such as physician assistants), further illustrating decreased skill readiness throughout the force. Further research is needed to examine procedural volumes per individual EP, as well as those performed by other providers to evaluate for overall procedural readiness across the military force.
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Intrathoracic pressure regulation (ITPR) can be utilized to enhance venous return and cardiac preload by inducing negative end expiratory pressure in mechanically ventilated patients. Previous preclinical studies have shown increased mean arterial pressure (MAP) and decreased intracranial pressure (ICP) with use of an ITPR device. The aim of this study was to evaluate the hemodynamic and respiratory effects of ITPR in a porcine polytrauma model of hemorrhagic shock and acute lung injury (ALI). ⋯ In this swine polytrauma model, we demonstrated successful establishment of hemorrhage and combined hemorrhage/ALI models. While ITPR did not demonstrate a benefit for MAP or ICP, our data demonstrate that the ITPR device induced tachycardia with associated increase in cardiac output, as well as tachypnea with decreased lung compliance, EELV, PaO2/FIO2 ratio, and worse histopathologic lung injury. Therefore, implementation of the ITPR device in the setting of polytrauma may compromise pulmonary function without significant hemodynamic improvement.
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The relationship between volume and outcome of total knee arthroplasties is a concern in both the civilian and military patient populations. We sought to compare surgeons and hospital procedure volumes performed on military service members and define factors leading to increased civilian referrals. ⋯ Based on our findings, we recommend the MHS focus attention to recapturing the Army active duty male patients who are more likely to receive care outside of the military healthcare network. Further analysis of the many factors including, but not limited to, referral process for total joint arthroplasty, time to procedure, and facility resources is required, in addition to assessing patient outcomes following the procedures.
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Smallpox, caused by variola virus, was eradicated in 1980, but remains a category A bioterrorism agent. A decade ago, smallpox ranked second after anthrax in a multifactorial risk priority scoring analysis of category A bioterrorism agents. However, advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology, including published methods for synthesizing an Orthopoxvirus, require the assumptions of this scoring for smallpox and other category A agents to be reviewed. ⋯ Revision of a risk priority framework for category A bioterrorism agents shows that smallpox should be elevated in priority for preparedness planning, and that gene editing and synthetic biology raises the overall risk for all agents. The ranking of categories A, B, and C agents should also be revisited, as there is an endless possibility of engineered threats that may be more severe than any agent on the category A list.