Tactical Medical Logistics
Planning Tool (TML+)
Problem/Requirement
To help prepare for a mission, medical planners would benefit from a tool that models medical treatment in the far-forward environment by projecting the numbers and types of patients and simulating their routing and treatment times, as well as the demands they place on consumable supplies, equipment, personnel, and transportation assets.
Solution/Product
The Naval Health Research Center and Teledyne Brown Engineering developed the Tactical Medical Logistics Planning Tool (TML+). TML+ is a simulation tool that models the patient flow from the point of injury through more definitive care and a research tool that supports systems analysis, operational risk assessment, and field medical services planning.
Approach and Results
TML+ has a significant amount of underlying data that includes over 400 patient conditions; medical treatment tasks; treatment times; supplies and equipment; died of wounds due to treatment delay; type, speed, and capacity of transportation assets; medical capabilities; and type of personnel.
The user enters scenario length, number of wounded in action, disease, and non-battle injuries expected to occur, and configures the treatment laydown by medical capability.
TML+ uses stochastic processes to model patient arrivals, treatment, and outcomes as they flow from the point of injury through a network of care facilities. TML+ also generates a dynamic report navigator that details casualty generation, care providing, and transportation metrics in both tabular and graphic formats.
Benefits
First, TML+ is a research tool that can help identify the best course of action for the anticipated patient stream with the projected assets. TML+ can be used to determine whether a particular treatment facility can successfully handle a specific patient stream; how the relocation of a treatment facility affects patient treatment; which and how much of the supply, personnel, and transportation assets are utilized; and whether one network of care facilities is more efficient for treating patients than another. Such research can be used to determine how to best configure and employ those assets already secured and to justify the procurement of additional assets to ensure a high standard of medical care.
Second, TML+ is an analysis tool that can perform different types of planning. In deliberate planning, TML+ can be used before deployment to conduct risk assessment and determine the medical treatment network that would optimally treat the expected patient stream. In crisis-action planning, TML+ can be used during deployment to reconfigure the treatment network in response to contingency events. In near real-time planning, TML+ can be used to provide situational awareness by tracking how patient treatment events proceed as the mission is performed. This versatility provides planners with a view of the medical requirements for a particular mission and helps planners respond to the rapidly changing war fighting environment.
A web site is also available, providing detailed information on TML+ and directions on how to obtain the model: www.tmlsim.com
For additional information, contact
Johnny Brock
256-726-3631
busdev3@tbe.com
Please visit www.tmlsim.com to learn more about TML+