Developing War-Relevant Wound Care Skills for Medical Technicians Through Local Military-Civilian Partnership

Aerospace Medical Service Technicians (Air Force Specialty Code 4N0X1) provide bedside wound care in the expeditionary environment, but military treatment facility activity does not consistently generate the volume or categorical breadth of presentations required to sustain the Comprehensive Medical Readiness Program (CMRP) wound care domains. Keesler Medical Center (KMC) established a Training Affiliation Agreement with Memorial Health System (MHS), embedding 4N0 personnel within the civilian wound care service. This study quantified available exposure at each site.

Retrospective analysis of wound care activity over 13 consecutive weeks (March 2 through May 31, 2025). Four CMRP-aligned metrics were extracted weekly: patient encounters (Cat II.B), debridements (Cat II.C), negative--pressure dressing changes (Cat II.J), and burn encounters (Cat II.E). Weekly volumes were compared using a paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test by calendar week; Fisher's exact test was used for sparse categories.

MHS exceeded KMC across all 4 categories. Patient encounters: 2,498 vs. 285 (rate ratio 8.8; P < .001); debridements: 377 vs. 41 (rate ratio 9.2; P < .001); Negative-pressure dressings: any event in 9 of 13 vs. 3 of 13 weeks (P = .047); Burn encounters: 9 of 13 vs. 0 of 13 weeks (P < .001).

A formal civilian wound care partnership produced approximately 9-fold greater patient and debridement exposure than the military site and introduced burn exposure that was otherwise absent. Attaching 4N0 personnel to a CMRP-dense civilian functional area under a Training Affiliation Agreement is a generalizable readiness template for enlisted medical specialties.