U.S. Army Medical Department journal
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The mission of the en route caregiver is to provide critical care in military helicopters for wounded Warriors. This care minimizes the effects of the wounds and injuries, and improves morbidity and mortality. This article will focus on the history of Army Nursing en route care. ⋯ The role of critical care nurses has proven to be essential and irreplaceable in providing full-spectrum care to casualties of war, in particular, the postsurgical patients transferred from one surgical facility to another in theatre. However, we have only recently developed the concepts over the required skill set, training, equipment, functionality, evidenced-based care, and sustainability of nursing in the en route care role. Much of the work to quantify and qualify nursing care has been done by individuals and individual units whose lessons-learned have only recently been captured.