Courtesy Photo | CAMP PENDELTON, Calif. (July 25, 2018) – Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Elston assists with...... read more read more
PENSACOLA, Fla. (Aug 8, 2018) – Naval Expeditionary Medical Training Institute (NEMTI) recently completed an Expeditionary Medical Facility (EMF) training course in two consecutive weeks for the first time in 15 years.
EMF is the Navy’s largest land-based medical platform, which meets the requirement to establish, operate and maintain a medical facility overseas that remains readily deployable.
Once built, this Role III care platform can support 150 hospital beds and takes about eight to 10 days to be operational, said Cmdr. Sharon House, officer-in-charge at NEMTI. EMF teams trained at NEMTI at Camp Pendleton, California, become the Navy professionals responsible for building and operating these facilities. The training consists of two phases. Phase IIA trains core personnel to construct and set up the buildings and construction equipment that will be used for an EMF. Phase IIB includes medical equipment familiarization, integrated patient throughput, and emergency response training. Once through both phases, an EMF team is considered ready to deploy.
EMF teams are assigned by geographical location. For instance, in 2017, EMF November (comprised of Sailors mostly from Bremerton, Washington) and EMF Golf (drawing heavily on Sailors from Beaufort, South Carolina) completed both Phase IIA and Phase IIB, though the training was interrupted by logistic challenges.
EMF Lima consists of about 80 percent Sailors based out of Pensacola, Florida, and was the first EMF team to complete the course in a two-week consecutive period, meeting a new Navy Medicine standard.
“This is significant because if deployed, the EMF unit would be required to set up their new facility and be able to receive patients in 72 hours and be fully operational in 10 days,” said House. “Now the training reflects a potential real-life mission.”
House explained that EMF Lima met all Operational Readiness Evaluation criteria and should expect to be in the ready to deploy status.
The training consisted of long hours and many days of physical work, but House said there was an overwhelming positive response from the course participants. House marveled at how Lima staff learned to change a blank patch of land into an EMF that is ready to treat patients within only a few days and touched on the huge sense of accomplishment and great pride to both instructors and participants.
“This EMF course was a great experience,” said Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class George Taylor, EMF Lima surgical technician. “I recently returned from Iraq, and it was good to see the ‘flip side’ of building a hospital from the ground up.”
NEMTI is a detachment of Navy Medicine Operational Training Center (NMOTC), whose mission is to provide operational medical and aviation survival training. NMOTC is part of the network of Navy medicine professionals who support Sailors and Marines worldwide, providing critical mission support aboard ships, in the air, under the sea, and on the battlefield.
| Date Taken: | 08.08.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.16.2018 10:36 |
| Story ID: | 289026 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 590 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, NEMTI completes streamlined EMF training, by PO1 Michael Lieberknecht, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
