LESSON 3
MEDICAL REGULATING AND AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION
Section I. INTRODUCTION
3-1.
GENERAL
This lesson explains the many complexities of aeromedical evacuation and
describes the benefits to the Armed Forces medical services which result from having this
service available to military medical treatment facilities. The information in this lesson will
prepare you for assignments within the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) involving the
administrative processing of patients entering this phase of military medicine. The patient
is the primary concern in the overall mission of the Armed Forces medical services.
Therefore, medical service personnel must be prepared in all phases of care and
treatment to assure that the patient's rehabilitation and ultimate return to duty as efficiently
and expeditiously as possible.
3-2.
LEVEL OF TREATMENT
Military patients are treated at the lowest level, equipped, and staffed to provide
necessary medical care consistent with evacuation policies. If treatment required is not
available at the facility providing area hospital care, the patient is transferred to the most
readily accessible uniformed service medical treatment facility that possesses the required
capability. A member of a uniformed service is transferred, when necessary, to the
nearest uniformed service hospital (in relation to place of military assignment) having the
capability to provide the necessary care. A patient who is not expected to return to duty
within a reasonable time or who is expected to be retired or separated is transferred, when
necessary, to the uniformed service medical treatment facility nearest the patient's home if
such facility has the capability for the required care and disposition.
3-3.
EVACUATION AND REGULATING
At this point in the lesson, you need to understand that there is a difference between
regulating and transferring or evacuating a patient.
a. Patient Evacuation. Evacuation is the timely and efficient movement of
wounded, injured, or ill persons from the battlefield and other locations to medical treatment
facilities and from these facilities to other facilities for additional treatment. Evacuation
begins at the locations where the injury or illness occurs and continues as far rearward as
the patient's medical condition warrants or the military situation requires.
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