Redefining Projections of Disease and Nonbattle Injury Patient Condition Code Distributions with Casualty Data from Operation Iraqi Freedom

摘要

Modeling and simulation applications require accurate estimates of the frequency and types of illnesses and injuries incurred during military operations in order to assess medical resource needs. Data from the Navy-Marine Corps Combat Trauma Registry and the Joint Patient Tracking Application were used to identify US military disease and nonbattle injury casualties from Operation Iraqi Freedom during the time period of 01 March 2003 to 30 April 2005. Casualties were categorized by the 17 major ICD-9 diagnostic groups. Frequencies, standardized residuals, and chi-square statistics were used to compare the diagnostic categories among casualties by phase of operation, branch of service, and gender. The diagnostic categories varied by phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom, branch of service, and gender. Overall, there were a higher percentage of nonbattle injuries during the Major Combat Phase and a higher percentage of musculoskeletal disorders during the Post Combat Phase. Compared with all other services, the US Marine Corps had the highest percentage of injuries as well as the lowest percentage of musculoskeletal disorders. Men had more injuries than women, whereas women had more diseases of the genitourinary system than men. The Patient Condition Occurrence Frequency tool was developed to account for these differences in patient streams.