Delivering quality health care to soldiers and their families

Army, Oct 2002 by Peake, James B

In peace and war, the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) has one mission-to deliver the highest quality health care to the Army family, anywhere, under any circumstances.

The AMEDD responded effectively to the September 11 attacks and deployed on Operation Enduring Freedom missions in a dozen lands. At the same time, we continued to care for soldiers and families, to reduce the health care hassle factor and to forge ahead with Army Transformation.

The Army Medical Department's war began before the smoke cleared at the Pentagon on September 11. The first caregivers on the scene were from the Pentagon's DiLorenzo Clinic. Sgt. Matthew Rosenberg, a 26year-old DiLorenzo medic, earned a Soldier's Medal for his conduct that day. Not hearing the crash, Rosenberg blood, test kits and other supplies.

The U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM) sent special medical augmentation response teams-preventive medicine (SMART-PM) to the Pentagon for weeks, testing for health hazards. CHPPM is also expanding its surveillance and hazard identification activities in Afghanistan and in the continental United States to ensure our soldiers are kept as healthy, safe and protected as possible, no matter what the environment.

Tripler Army Medical Center tested 136 blood units for the Blood Bank of Hawaii, which could not fly them to the usual lab because all aircraft were grounded.

AMEDD stress managers played a major role. Probably the first mental health expert on the scene was Maj. Sam Mack of Fort Belvoir. Mack rushed to the Pentagon as survivors were being pulled from the rubble.

Augmented by Fort Belvoir personnel, three SMART-- mental health teams from Walter Reed stayed 28 days, aiding survivors and recovery workers as part of Operation Solace. The teams helped search for bodies to enable them to bond with workers and respond faster to stress reactions. "It was so surreal. You can't train for that," team member Capt. Roger Bannon told Occupational Health magazine. The stress managers' fast response was just the beginning. Victims and witnesses will need counseling for years, and AMEDD stress managers will be there.

Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (for which AMEDD is executive agent) deployed 70 forensic specialists from all over the country to the military morgue at Dover Air Force Base, Del. The multiservice team worked for weeks at Dover and the DNA lab, Rockville, Md., to identify victims. Employees worked 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Their work ended November 16, having identified 184 of the 189 Pentagon dead.

When unknown parties mailed anthrax-laced letters, the AMEDD again helped the nation face a frightening challenge. The special pathogens lab at U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Md., tested thousands of samples. During the crisis, people from USAMRIID and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research joined in. The lab crew swelled from six to 82 and samples hit 700 a day. USAMRIID continues to assist civilian authorities in their investigation of the anthrax letter attacks.

The AMEDD Center and School has begun a massive train-the-trainer course entitled Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and High Explosive (CBRNE), to ensure our providers are prepared for such contingencies. The first CBRNE course was conducted in February in San Antonio, Texas, drawing 226 people from all our treatment facilities. These included caregivers as well as emergency-response planners.

As always, Army medical people are sharing the risks and hardships of the fighting forces. Besides medics in combat units, we have sent combat support hospitals, forward surgical teams, medical task forces, aeromedical-evacuation units, preventive medicine teams, veterinary detachments, medical logisticians, blood teams-more than 900 active and reserve component medical personnel-all over the Central Command area.

At Bagram, Afghanistan, Maj. Jerry Currin's clinic started as a sick-call site for Northern Alliance soldiers. Soon Afghan fighters were feigning illness to secure medicines for their wives. Now they bring children and elders.

An hour-and-a-half C-130 ride away in Uzbekistan, a tailored slice of a combat support hospital stands as backup for the front-line medics. Reflecting the global AMEDD, the same hospital has a tailored module in Kosovo.

Hospitals in Uzbekistan are trying technology never before used in the field, such as digital X-rays that do not need film or chemicals and can be e-mailed; an oxygen system that purifies ordinary air, avoiding heavy canisters; and an online database that lets commanders track soldiers' injuries, location and recovery.

U.S. Army Medical Materiel Center, Europe, supplies more than 7,500 medical supply items to a state-of-theart Jordanian field hospital that has treated thousands of Afghans.

Prevention is a big Operation Enduring Freedom success. The disease and nonbattle-injury rate is 0.11 soldiers per thousand per day, compared to 1.78 for World War II, 0.91 for Vietnam and 0.37 for the Gulf War.