Medical evacuation in a low intensity conflict environment

Medical evacuation is one of the major missions of the Medical Element, Joint Task Force-Bravo (ME-JTF-B) in Honduras, which operates in a low intensity conflict environment. ME-JTF-B conducted 10 missions during the primary author's deployment. Critical examination of these missions led to several performance improvements. The most important is that of deploying on all missions an emergency medical evaluation team with TACSAT (a field portable transmitter-receiver which can communicate via satellite over long distances). The second most important is that of close command and control of every mission by the hospital commander and the chief administrator. Other performance improvements are listed below.