Introduction: The 2010-2011 withdrawal from Iraq included the closure of all fixed-facility military medical resources. Operation INHERENT RESOLVE, the United States-led counter-terrorism mission in Iraq and Syria, subsequently commenced in 2014. With increasing combat operations, the 28th Combat Support Hospital deployed to Iraq to support that mission as a limited footprint unit prototyped after the new modular Army Field Hospital. We describe the non-battle utilization of the emergency medical treatment section. Methods: We prospectively collected data for this project as part of a performance improvement initiative to track healthcare utilization to guide emergency medical treatment section staffing. The project took place at a combat support hospital near Baghdad, Iraq from July 2016 through January 2017. Results: During this time, the emergency department (ED) averaged 3.5 visits per day totaling 675 non-battle encounters. Most (84.6%) were U.S. military personnel with a median age of 32 (IQR 26-38). The most common procedure performed was point-of-care ultrasound (n = 33). Most patients (96.9%) underwent discharge from the ED. Of the 21 subjects admitted, 6 were for surgical intervention and the remaining for medical or observational indications. The most common chief complaints were musculoskeletal (31.1%, n = 210), respiratory (15.3%, n = 103), and dermatologic (12.0%, n = 81). Conclusions: Non-battle injuries and illnesses were the predominant reason for ED utilization. Most subjects were discharged back to duty with relatively low-resource utilization. Few visits required procedural interventions.
CITATION STYLE
Naylor, J. F., Brillhart, D. B., April, M. D., & Schauer, S. G. (2019). Non-battle emergency department utilization of the first modular army field hospital prototype in support of operation INHERENT RESOLVE. Military Medicine, 184(5–6), e168–e171. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usy357
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