Nursing and en route care: history in time of war

The mission of the en route caregiver is to provide critical care in military helicopters for wounded Warriors. This care minimizes the effects of the wounds and injuries, and improves morbidity and mortality. This article will focus on the history of Army Nursing en route care. From World War II through Vietnam, and continuing through the War on Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army nurses served in providing en route care in military airplanes and helicopters for patients being transported to higher echelons of care. From aid stations on the battlefield to forward surgical teams which provide life, limb, and eyesight saving care, to the next higher level of care in combat support hospitals, these missions require specialized nursing skills to safely care for the high acuity patients. Before the en route care concept existed, there was not a program to train nurses in these critical skills. There was also a void of information about patient outcomes associated with the nursing assessment and care provided during helicopter medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) of such unstable patients, and the consequent impact on the patient's condition after transport. The role of critical care nurses has proven to be essential and irreplaceable in providing full-spectrum care to casualties of war, in particular, the postsurgical patients transferred from one surgical facility to another in theatre. However, we have only recently developed the concepts over the required skill set, training, equipment, functionality, evidenced-based care, and sustainability of nursing in the en route care role. Much of the work to quantify and qualify nursing care has been done by individuals and individual units whose lessons-learned have only recently been captured.