En Route Care (ERC)
The En Route Care (ERC) portfolio focuses on optimizing patient outcomes and operational advantage by developing methods for increasing the timing and volume of patients moved throughout the continuum of care. Through the research of the ERC portfolio, providers can leverage emerging training methods to obtain medical procedural and decision-making skills through all phases of medical evacuation. Utilizing the information gained through ERC research efforts, providers can optimize en route care during prolonged patient movements by using emerging knowledge products correlating mode, timing, and outcomes of patient movement. The ERC portfolio also strives to develop methods and incorporate emerging technologies to support en route providers cognitively and physically, enabling improved patient care and clinical outcome.
Research efforts focus on improvements to en route critical care through development of evacuation platforms that maximize effective en route critical care and minimize deleterious effects on patient outcomes, testing of medical technologies that validate en route care practice guidelines and techniques to preserve provider performance, and improvement of guidelines for medical support of patient movement for ground, aerial, maritime, and unmanned systems. Main goals of this portfolio include:
- Leverage emerging training methodology enhancements to identify and promote replication of best practices
- Identify and develop methods and materiel to mitigate negative effects of en route care during long haul, long hold, and extreme weather evacuation
- Identify, develop, and evaluate methods and materiel to increase volume and frequency of combat casualty movement during evacuation