DHA Partners With Marines to Refine Portable TBI Assessment Technology for Austere Battlefield

Team members assigned to the Defense Health Agency’s Warfighter Readiness, Performance and Brain Health team hosted an end user touchpoint at the Tactical Medicine Training Center, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, June 30.

The event brought together Navy corpsmen and medical officers from across the II Marine Expeditionary Force to assess new capabilities for evaluating traumatic brain injuries on the battlefield. Participants evaluated Traumatic Brain Injury Field Assessment Program devices in a hands-on session, providing TBI-FAP developers with critical feedback directly from front-line medical providers who may one day use the equipment in austere environments.

The TBI-FAP program is managed by brain health experts within the WRPBH Project Management Office in collaboration with partners at the North Carolina Center for Optimizing Military Performance. This event, the latest in a series, was designed to gather feedback on TBI assessment technology prototypes being developed for use in a far-forward operational environment. Feedback from prospective end users is a vital step in the early development of any program, according to Damien Hoffman, a product manager with WRPBH.

“Collaborating with stakeholders across the military services and from key organizations in a systematic, routine way is imperative to our team’s success,” Hoffman said. “These touchpoints allow us to gather an array of feedback from end users with varying degrees of experience and expertise, an invaluable resource as we develop products for the warfighter.”

During the assessment, Navy corpsmen and medical officers got hands-on experience with the candidate technologies to test usability, durability and integration into existing tactical combat casualty care workflows.

“It is great, for me as a corpsman, to see what types of technologies are being developed for medical providers who operate at the front lines,” said Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Aspen Mitchell, a hospital corpsman assigned to the Marine Wing Communications Squadron 28 at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, North Carolina. “Because of our expeditionary mission, we could literally be deployed anywhere in the world, and healthcare is vital for mission success. It is important for us, as medical providers, to give input on technologies during the development process to make the candidate technologies better and ensure they meet our needs as possible end users.”

As the War Department continues to prepare for possible large-scale combat operations in austere environments worldwide, ensuring that warfighters have immediate access to neurological assessments is a top priority for military health leaders within the DHA. In future conflicts, medical providers anticipate a high likelihood of prolonged field-care scenarios. Unlike operations over the last two decades, where aeromedical evacuation was often rapid and guaranteed, near-peer conflicts in austere, remote locations will likely feature highly contested airspace and limited aviation resources.

For the Navy-Marine Corps team, these challenges are compounded by their unique role as the nation’s premier amphibious force. Marines and their embedded Navy medical providers frequently operate in distributed, maritime environments — moving from ship to shore or securing expeditionary advanced bases across vast littoral regions. In these decentralized operational areas, the “golden hour” for traditional medical evacuation is often unattainable.

Because of these unique amphibious and logistical constraints, Navy corpsmen must be equipped to hold, monitor and treat casualties at or near the point of injury for extended periods. The ability to accurately assess traumatic brain injuries on the front line using lightweight, organic tools — like those developed through the TBI-FAP — is critical. It empowers first responders to make vital triage decisions, manage complex neurological trauma while isolated on distant shores and prioritize limited maritime medical evacuation assets for the most critical cases.

“Our process is a continuum, with flexibility to evolve alongside emerging threats and meet the needs of front-line warfighters, combatant commands and joint staff,” Hoffman said. “Our goal is to rapidly develop a TBI assessment capability at the speed of relevance and these touchpoints are imperative to achieving that goal.”