The field hospital at Zagreb: tri-service medical care in a peacekeeping operation

The objective of this investigation was to provide military medical planners with insights into the specific materiel, skills, and information requirements demanded by humanitarian missions through review of approximately 16,000 records from a tri-service medical patient database used at the field hospital in Zagreb, Croatia, during Operation Provide Promise. This review describes (1) the origin, rationale, structure, and implementation of the database; (2) the patients who used medical services provided by the hospital; (3) the diagnoses encountered in outpatient visits, admissions, and surgical operations; and (4) the distribution of medical services used by various subgroups of interest.