An overview of the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) in Afghanistan: a paramedic's perspective

AbstractThis article examines the non clinical skills and training required for effective maritime pre-hospital emergency care provision within a Role Two Afloat facility, allowing for a Primary Retrieval Team to be deployed in support of boarding operations. The provision of pre-hospital emergency care and sending a retrieval team forward has been trialled in various forms. In 2010 and 2011 a R2A team was deployed aboard RFA FORT VICTORIA. This included a Primary Retrieval Team consisting of an Emergency Nurse Specialist, a Medical Assistant which can be enhanced when required by an Emergency Care or Anaesthetic Consultant. This differs from the land operations support provided by the airborne Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) as the maritime environment requires a bespoke solution for casualty retrieval as the method of deployment and the type of casualties and their locations may be more varied, requiring greater flexibility of approach.

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A qualitative study to investigate the psychosocial effects of operational deployments on Medical Emergency Response Team personnel

Stress and Health ◽

10.1002/smi.3001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Di Lamb ◽

Rich DJ Withnall

Keyword(s):

Qualitative Study ◽

Emergency Response ◽

Medical Emergency ◽

Psychosocial Effects ◽

Response Team

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The Maritime Medical Emergency Response Team: what do we really need?

Journal of The Royal Naval Medical Service ◽

10.1136/jrnms-103-17 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 103 (1) ◽

pp. 17-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

S J Mercer ◽

M A Khan ◽

C M Hillman ◽

J Robin ◽

J J Matthews ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emergency Response ◽

Hospital Care ◽

Damage Control ◽

Medical Emergency ◽

Damage Control Resuscitation ◽

Royal Navy ◽

Response Team ◽

The Individual ◽

In Transit ◽

And Training

AbstractSince 2006, the Defence Medical Services (DMS) pre-hospital care focus has been the Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT), which has enabled the projection of Damage Control Resuscitation (DCR) to the point of wounding as part of consultant-delivered care. Now in a period of contingency operations, the Royal Navy (RN)’s Role 2 medical capability, Role 2 Afloat (R2A) delivers DCR (including surgery) on a maritime platform. This article will focus on the development of the Maritime MERT component of R2A (termed Maritime In Transit Care (MITC) in Maritime Medical Doctrine) and will discuss the requirements based on experience of and preparation for an operation in 2016. Also discussed are the individual competencies and training required to be part of the Maritime MERT; it is hoped that this will simulate debate around this evolving team.

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A ‘mixed reality’ simulator concept for future Medical Emergency Response Team training

Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps ◽

10.1136/jramc-2016-000726 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 163 (4) ◽

pp. 280-287 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Robert J Stone ◽

R Guest ◽

P Mahoney ◽

D Lamb ◽

C Gibson

Keyword(s):

Emergency Response ◽

Mixed Reality ◽

Team Training ◽

Medical Emergency ◽

Response Team

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A comparison of handover communication in NHS and military emergency care

Journal of Paramedic Practice ◽

10.12968/jpar.2020.12.4.151 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 151-156

Author(s):

Rowena Slope ◽

Catherine Pope ◽

Robert Crouch ◽

Elizabeth MM Bernthal

Keyword(s):

Air Force ◽

Emergency Response ◽

Thematic Analysis ◽

Emergency Care ◽

Transition Theory ◽

Medical Emergency ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Royal Air Force ◽

Response Team ◽

The Military

Background: There is a gap in the literature comparing communication during handover between military and NHS emergency care settings. Objectives: This study aimed to explore differences in handover communication in the NHS and the military, and to understand how paramedics manage the transition between settings. Design: This was a qualitative study for which 13 paramedics were interviewed. It focused on handover communication in NHS emergency care settings and Camp Bastion Hospital, Afghanistan. Methods: Interviews were conducted with regular and reservist paramedics serving in the Royal Air Force who had undertaken a deployment with the Medical Emergency Response Team. Semi-structured interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and subjected to a thematic analysis. Results: Three principal themes were identified: differences between handover communication; standardisation; and the challenge of transition. Conclusion: Participants were most concerned about standardisation. Transition theory and resilience may account for the difficulties encountered when transitioning between different care settings.

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Field Monitoring the Effects of Overnight Shift Work on Specialist Tactical Police Training with Heart Rate Variability Analysis

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13147895 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (14) ◽

pp. 7895

Author(s):

Colin Tomes ◽

Ben Schram ◽

Robin Orr

Keyword(s):

Heart Rate ◽

Heart Rate Variability ◽

Shift Work ◽

Emergency Response ◽

Police Training ◽

Heart Rate Variability Analysis ◽

Response Team ◽

Hrv Analysis ◽

And Performance ◽

Personnel Allocation

Police work exposes officers to high levels of stress. Special emergency response team (SERT) service exposes personnel to additional demands. Specifically, the circadian cycles of SERT operators are subject to disruption, resulting in decreased capacity to compensate in response to changing demands. Adaptive regulation loss can be measured through heart rate variability (HRV) analysis. While HRV Trends with health and performance indicators, few studies have assessed the effect of overnight shift work on HRV in specialist police. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects overnight shift work on HRV in specialist police. HRV was analysed in 11 SERT officers and a significant (p = 0.037) difference was found in pRR50 levels across the training day (percentage of R-R intervals varying by >50 ms) between those who were off-duty and those who were on duty the night prior. HRV may be a valuable metric for quantifying load holistically and can be incorporated into health and fitness monitoring and personnel allocation decision making.

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