Joint Force medical planners often operate in fast-paced environments with complex and evolving threat landscapes. Solutions for timely treatment of chemical and biological (CB) threats with the help of the Agile Medical Countermeasures Decision Support Tool (AMDST) will allow users to compare various medical countermeasure (MCM) combinations and to present a request for specific investigational or repurposed MCMs to decision makers at the speed of relevance.
The AMDST will also enable the prioritization of MCM plans based on residual risk that meets mission-specific parameters. Overall, this capability will increase the survivability of warfighters by enabling a comprehensive MCM response to persistent CB threats.
The AMDST is based on a quantitative risk-assessment framework that evaluates four key factors of any mission’s medical plan:
- Threat Agent Risk
- MCM Benefit
- MCM Risk
- Fielding Risk
Each of these factors include multi-dimensional underlying components, categories, metrics, and submetrics that are each weighted, scored, and integrated to allow an operational planner a holistic evaluation of CB MCM strategies based on specific mission and threat parameters.
Speed and accuracy are the drivers for the development of this AMDST by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Chemical and Biological Technologies Department in its role as the Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for Chemical and Biological Defense, an integral component of the Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP), in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory.
One of the most powerful aspects of the AMDST is that it takes into consideration the effects of multi-step countermeasure response plans, called layered MCMs. To do this, it quantifies the specific threat agent risks alongside the benefits, safety, and fielding challenges of operational MCMs and provides an overall residual risk score for each potential layered MCM course of action. This score helps define the full risk–benefit ratio to enable informed and efficient decision making through the chain of command.
Not only can the tool be used in real time, but it may also be used for planning scenarios and exercises across the Joint Force to enable it to be ready to fight and win in a CB-contested environment. The AMDST will also allow a planner to evaluate the risks vs. the benefits for the available FDA-approved, investigational, and repurposed MCM types (such as vaccines, pre- and post-exposure prophylactics, and therapeutics) against a specific threat and operational scenario.
In its first year of development, the AMDST technical team examined the risk framework for soman nerve gas and carfentanil opioid analgesic chemical agents; plague, Ebola, and COVID-X biological pathogens; and botulism toxin by weighting and scoring each risk factor component against available MCMs and operational data. In its current development phase, the team is expanding the framework to account for additional categories of threats to move towards a threat-agnostic tool, building capabilities for automated inputs, and further refining the quantitative framework. Additional enhancements include building a graphical user interface to allow users to interact with the tool and operational exercises for additional user engagement and refinement during the critical development phase.
This JSTO tool could join the list of technologies that have successfully provided the Joint Force with critical capabilities.
POC: Sweta Batni, Ph.D., sweta.r.batni.civ@mail.mil
| Date Taken: |
03.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: |
03.05.2024 13:29 |
| Story ID: |
465393 |
| Location: |
FT. BELVOIR, VA, US |
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