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About 92 percent of Soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have
made it home alive, according to Lt. Gen. Nadja Y. West.
That's the highest percentage in the history of warfare, despite the
rising severity of battle injuries from increasingly lethal weapons,
said West, Surgeon general of the Army and commander of Army Medical
Command. She spoke here on August 18, 2016 to the Defense Writers
Group.
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August 24, 2016 - About 92 percent of Soldiers wounded in
Iraq and Afghanistan have made it home alive, said Lt. Gen. Nadja Y.
West. Shown here, Soldiers in a tactical critical care evacuation
team prepare for a patient transfer mission at Forward Operating
Base Orgun East, Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Marleah
Miller)
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The survival rate in Vietnam was around 75 percent, she
told her audience.
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
There
are a number of reasons for improved survival rates, West
said.
Soldiers, not just medics, are receiving much
better training in lifesaving techniques, and Army medicine
has continued to advance, she said. Another reason is that
casualties are transported swiftly back to hospitals and
receive excellent care en route.
Other contributing
factors are less obvious, she said, like improved
communication from the point of injury.
For example,
a video teleconference line has been established between
forces deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq back to Landstuhl
Regional Medical Center, Germany, which is usually the first
stop for casualties, she pointed out.
Communications
channels have also been established with follow-on treatment
centers, including Walter Reed National Military Medical
Center, Maryland; Naval Medical Center San Diego; and the
Army's burn center at Joint Base San Antonio.
During
a recent video teleconference, West recalled, physicians in
the U.S. were able to see that a Soldier's head wound was
causing inter-cranial pressure and advise medical staff to
address while still in theater.
Open communications
channels also mean that medical staff stateside can better
prepare for an incoming casualty, West added.
FUTURE
SURVIVABILITY
While battlefield survival rates
continue to improve, Soldiers in future conflicts may not be
so fortunate, West said.
In the conflicts in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the U.S. forces had the luxury of air
superiority and could evacuate casualties almost at will,
she said.
A Soldier with a head wound in Afghanistan
could arrive from the point of injury to Bethesda Naval
Medical Center where the medical specialist was standing by
within 24 hours of being wounded, she said.
"That's
unprecedented," she said.
But in a conflict with a
near-peer enemy U.S. forces cannot count on that level of
air superiority, West said. So Army medicine is looking for
alternative ways of treatment.
For one, the Army will
be asking a lot more of its medics in the future. That could
mean teaching them sophisticated techniques and procedures
that they currently don't perform. First responders, those
non-medics in the fight, will also be asked to do more, she
said.
Advances in telehealth will also play a vital
role, she said. Telehealth, employing telecommunications
technologies to deliver virtual medical services, has
already come a long way.
In the near future, a
Soldier could be fitted with medical sensors that collect
and relay medical data to an intensive care specialist, or a
vascular surgeon in the U.S. could instruct a medical
provider in theater to do a relatively complex procedure on
a blood vessel.
"It won't make that person a trauma
surgeon," West said. "But that reach-back could help when
needed."
By U.S. Army David Vergun
Army News Service
Copyright 2016
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