What Happens in Vegas: Enlisted Medical Providers Practice to Their Full Clinical Scope in a Civilian Hospital.

Abstract

Background: The potential of large-scale future conflicts require expertise in field and facility-based care of high patient volumes in Prolonged Casualty Care scenarios. In our experience, a military-civilian partnership that enables Enlisted Medical Providers (EMP) to work at their full scope of practice in civilian hospitals is ideal to train excellent and reliable patient care which improves outcomes and ultimately saves lives.

Methods: Creating the opportunity and understanding needed to ensure EMP participation in the Las Vegas Military-Civilian Partnership (LV-MCP) required state legislative changes, discussions with the local governmental and private entities, military and civilian executive leadership buy-in, and institutional culture change.

Results: Over 2 years of data collection, 566 EMPs in 8 specialties developed technical skills, decision-making experience, and self-awareness in complex, high-acuity, hands-on patient care environments.

Conclusion: The high level of readiness achieved in the LV-MCP can and should be replicated in other markets. This commentary describes the policy, process, and institutional efforts undertaken to achieve EMPs working to their full clinical scope of practice in the LV-MCP hospital and calls for new ways to measure effective expeditionary readiness.