In his 2023 Executive Rudder, Navy Surgeon General Rear Adm. Darin Via said, “Navy medical personnel remain focused on the mission of warrior readiness. Navy medical personnel lead advances in frontline medical platforms, technologies, and procedures that enable readiness, sustain morale, and ultimately win wars.”
Naval Medical Readiness Logistics Command (NMRLC), Williamsburg, VA, plays a vital role in providing the materiel solutions of those frontline medical platforms via the Expeditionary Medical Family of Systems (EXMEDS). NMRLC is responsible for building and sustaining rapidly deployable EXMEDS to support contingency operations, humanitarian assistance, and real-world events and exercises around the globe. To address emerging requirements more responsively, Navy Medicine transformed the legacy Fleet Hospitals into more agile, flexible, scalable, modular Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF)s to support the full range of military operations.
NMRLC's Senior Civilian of the Quarter, Matthew Gerten, supervises the movement of heave equipment while in Norway. Gerten also played a critical role in NMRLC logistics operation with EMF 144 at Camp Foster, Japan.
Lt. Cassidhe Griffiths, NMRLC's Deputy Design Director was pictured here while in Norway, but in Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan, she lead the team as NMRLC’s Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) Activation Team Officer.
Ambulatory care and triage staging area where patients would be evaluated for further needs at the Camp Foster, Japan, in the 2019 pre-positioned 150-bed Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF).
Further supporting the full range of military operations are both the legacy 150-bed EMF and the new 144-bed modular EMF designs. Smaller systems include Expeditionary Resuscitative Surgical Suite (ERSS) and the En Route Care System (ERCS), already proving themselves in fleet use and real-world situations. The ERSS provides Role II medical care consisting of 43 cases that can fit on one 463-liter air pallet for ease of transport. It can be deployed in support of ground or sea-based operations. Each set can perform four surgeries and resuscitate up to six non-surgical patients holding them on station while awaiting medical evacuation. The ERCS provides personnel, equipment and consumables for uninterrupted continuation of patient care during movement, without clinically compromising the patient’s condition. The ERCS provides skilled medical care for up to two critically injured or ill but stabilized patients to maintain clinical stability during transportation for up to an 8-hour transit via ground, surface, or air.
The EMF allows medical personnel to address a wide range of health threats through mission execution and flexibility. It provides the ability to restore warfighters’ overall health, increasing performance and deployability. EXMEDS investments focused on materiel and knowledge-based medical solutions, including the delivery of improved combat casualty care, enhanced survivability, and reduced impact of injury and an optimized downrange medical footprint led to significant improvements in 2019 resulting in a modular EMF.
“Role III support has additional capabilities, similar to any CONUS-based hospital including specialty clinics, diagnostic resources, specialist surgical, preventive medicine, food inspection, dentistry, physical therapy and operational stress management teams,” said NMRLC Design Team Director Cmdr. Jeremy Schwartz. “We accomplish this mission by providing the EMF forward deployed platforms with Role III medical and surgical capabilities designed to increase the survivability of those injured in a combat theater, and rapidly return the warfighter to health and back into the fight.”
EMF 150F, the legacy design of the EMF platform, was pre-positioned in 2019 and is currently forward deployed in Okinawa, Japan. In April 2024, a team of 30 NMRLC personnel built-out the platform core and evaluated actual system readiness with a result of bringing lifesaving capabilities only hours from implementation instead of weeks. The team of 30 was made up of NMRLC Active Duty, Reserve Component, Civilians, and deployed Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 4. Bringing this diverse team together from varying geographic locations and different naval commands proved the Seabee motto of “Can Do!”
“The EMF assembly in a warehouse on Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan is a light version of the typical EMF platform,” said Lt. Cassidhe Griffiths, NMRLC’s EMF Activation Team Officer. “The NMRLC mission in April 2024 for EMF 150F was to assess all operable components of the EMF core. This assessment included assembly, pressurization, and energizing of the shelters to assess the mission capability of each major component, and to give a general estimate of the capability of the EMF core compared to the Required Operating Capabilities after five years of stowage and very limited use. Included in our assessment is a list of deficiencies and a plan for corrective action, repairs, and design improvements to be included in future push blocks.”
The April 2024 mission included a build-out of durable clinical capabilities such as advanced laboratory facilities, combat casualty receiving stations, intensive and acute care services, surgical operating rooms, preventive medicine, orthopedics, OB/GYN and dental care. This 150-bed hospital has a footprint of roughly 85,000 square feet and includes climate control, laundry facilities, and 172 units of Civil Engineering Support Equipment including ambulances, buses, forklifts, trucks, A/C units, pumps, and generators.
The critical clinical capability provided by the Camp Foster, Okinawa, Japan EMF directly supports the Distributed Maritime Operations of the Indo-Pacific Command’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) and a potential contested near peer conflict. Additionally, the systems engineering, and operability data collected will be useful in further refining the next generation of EXMEDS. One of the most critical aspects of the newer design platform, EMF 144, is it requires fewer people to assemble it and can be done in stages allowing for patients to be seen before completion of the entire EMF.
More specifically, considering the Distributed Maritime Operations, US Indo-Pacific Command AOR covers more of the globe of any of the other geographic combatant commands and shares borders with all the other five geographic combatant commands. The commander of US Indo-Pacific Command reports to the President of the United States through the Secretary of Defense and is supported by multiple component and sub-unified commands including U.S. Forces Korea, US Forces Japan, U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Marine Forces Pacific, U.S. Pacific Air Forces and U.S. Army Pacific.
NMRLC efforts ensures that Warfighters have a place to go for medical care if and when needed. Anywhere in the world, where Warfighters place boots on the ground, Navy Medicine can provide expeditionary medical deployable systems. These field hospitals deliver definitive healthcare in theater. The tent-based facilities are easily adaptable, capability-based modules that can be tailored to meet a multitude of mission requirements. That’s where medical officers, nurses, Hospital Corpsmen, and the full complement of medical staff and support personnel stand at the ready to provide the highest level of world-class, life-saving medical assistance to all in theater military personnel.
This evolution added significantly to NMRLC’s ability to provide a materiel solution to enable rapid care for patient number one, on day one at the EMF, by setting up key elements and establishing all functional areas inside the warehouse. NMRLC’s efforts ensures the hospital can be functional in days or hours instead of weeks, with hurdles worked through onsite in Okinawa. The EMF will serve as a Role III point of care to save lives and return the medically ready warfighter to operational evolutions.
NMRLC is at the heart of Navy Medicine’s enterprise-wide foundational change designing and delivering agile and integrated capabilities to the Fleet and Fleet Marine Forces in Distributed Maritime Operations. These unique capabilities will provide medical assets to Combatant Commanders in theatres around the world.
Story originally posted on DVIDS:NMRLC Ensures Joint Warfighter Support is Ready for Action in Indo-Pacific AOR
