The "Survival Chain": Medical Support to Military Operations on the Future Battlefield

The Department of Defense Joint Trauma System (JTS) has proved its effectiveness at decreasing death on the battlefield since its inception in 2005, and thus the organization was codified into doctrine in 2016. While the JTS provided tremendous advances over the past 20 years in combat, the next conflict might last for less than 2 years but have 10 times as many combat casualties as the last two decades. The JTS must continue to evolve through its Medical Performance Optimization (MPO) cycle to meet these anticipated challenges, most urgently for point-of-injury care, care during casualty evacuation, and surgical care as discussed. They must actively seek to maintain their ability to optimize survival on the battlefield by decreasing warfighter attrition and thus producing the operational effect of maintaining combat strength. This is the mission of the Joint Trauma System. With the support of military leadership, the JTS could continue to evolve to support this critical role. The MPO concept is the cycle of near-real-time data collection and analysis, novel knowledge and/ or material solutions, and rapid integration into battlefield trauma care (the JTS OODA) that would enable the JTS to adapt and react quickly when needed.