Proceedings Research Workshop on Advanced Medical Training Technology (AMTT) : Results and conclusions

One of the greatest gains in reducing mortality on the battlefield results from improvements to
prehospital care. Although the survival rate from battlefield injuries has increased to more than
90%, the majority of deaths still occur before reaching a medical treatment facility. As the most
important timeline for survival is the time elapsing from injury to surgery, significant research
efforts should aim at improving prehospital care. The main outcome of the earlier Symposium on
“Emerging Technological Advances in Tactical Casualty Care” (HFM-249) was an urgent need
for standardized training of all staff managing casualties, all the way from soldier’s predeployment, forward deployment, to the medical staff handling the damage control and/or
resuscitation and to the surgeons. To be applied properly under stressful battlefield conditions, the application of medical procedures must be automated to a large extent. Automation can only be
reached by repetitive training. Advanced Medical Training Technology has the potential of
providing repetitive training of such procedures within a rich variety of cases and environments.
Hence, the aim of this workshop was to explore Advanced Training Technology (ATT) for the
improvement of the training of all actors in the survival chain, with a focus on first response. The focus has been on simulation, serious gaming including medical war-gaming, virtual and
augmented reality and advanced skills labs. The workshop targeted primary care skills and
included training of mental resilience and specific technologies that can be used for simulation of extreme conditions (heat, humidity, darkness, etc.) occurring in the battlefield.