US AIR FORCE MEDICAL SERVICE'S RISK MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The United States Air Force Medical Service's Risk Management Program

The United States Air Force Medical Service's Risk Management Program

Introduction

This document provides the Air Force Medical risk management program. It describes the use, employment, deployment, and redeployment of the Medical team. In addition this US Air Force may be used as a guide for validating future Medical team requirements and revisions to appropriate planning and training concepts. It focuses on pertinent aspects of capabilities, employment, and interoperability and is not intended to provide minute detail of all aspects of operations. Medical teams will be deployed to meet specific requirements for virtually all types of military missions.

Discussion

The Medical Team is designed to prevent Disease and Non-Battle Injuries (DNBI) which have historically had a significant impact on mission accomplishment in wartime/contingency operations. There is a two person medical element consisting of an Aerospace Medicine Specialist and Public Health Officer (PHO) (Aberdeen, 2003). The medical team will deploy with the lead Wing medical team when supporting an AEF or AEW. The team is designed to travel light and be extremely mobile so it can provide timely preventive medicine requirements to meet the needs of the entire population at the bed-down location. Therefore, the team will require Expeditionary Combat Support (ECS), including access to transportation to accomplish its mission successfully (Benenson, 2005).

Operations

The medical element of the Medical team is normally the first medical presence at any bed-down location and will arrive in the initial stage of converting the site into a fully operable air base. EMEDS preventive medicine support initially will be provided by the Medical Component of the two person EMEDS Basic medical Team and a Public Health Officer. They must be qualified to evaluate the safety and vulnerability of local food and water sources, perform epidemiological risk ...