A Joint Medical Command --- Is It Needed to Enhance Medical Interoperability in the Modern Warfight

Download or read book A Joint Medical Command --- Is It Needed to Enhance Medical Interoperability in the Modern Warfight written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the entire Department of Defense continues to transform in the midst of a global war on terrorism, all of the Services continue to promulgate ways and means to become more expeditionary and modular in their approach to warfighting. In order to maintain relevancy, so must the service Medical Departments also find ways to enhance their benefit to the Joint Force Commander. In an era of budgetary constraints, it is apparent that the time has come to look at just how significant the formulation of a Joint Medical Command would be to the operational aspect of warfare. There have been many recent episodes of jointness in medical support on the battlefield, but nothing in doctrine supports the premise, and current service parochialisms often stand in the way of furthering this concept. This paper will look at advantages and disadvantages of joint medical support using key operational functions and the six joint health service support principles as a framework for analysis and conclusion. Many have written about benefits to peacetime healthcare, yet little exists in ways of analyzing this concept with respect to the warfighter from a joint support perspective.