Telemedicine in the Context of Force Protection.

摘要

The best form of force protection is to be able to offer your soldiers the highest level of medical care, both before and after they become ill or injured. This has been the goal of military medicine for centuries, and generally each war has seen advances over the past. However, the world of military medicine has changed dramatically in the past 20 years, and now we must develop new ways of accomplishing this mission. From the period of the first field hospitals centuries ago through the first Gulf war, the tendency of most western militaries was to deploy an entire complement of medical specialties to field settings. A fully-deployed military medical system in this setting encompassed all the NATO Roles of care, from Role I (forward medical aid, e.g. Medic and Battalion Aid Station) through Role 2 (Clearing Company Equivalent), to Field Hospitals with Surgical Capability (Role 3) and Hospitals with Specialty Surgical Capability (Role 4). Today, few nations other than the U.S. have the capability to field such an extensive field medical system, and even that of the U.S. is much diminished.