Air Force Medical Support Agency Grant for Modernizing Medical Support and Innovation

Force Health Protection – Focus in Force Health Protection (FHP) is focused on technologies to prevent injury and illness, and the early recognition or detection of emerging threats. The intent is to pursue R&D/technology advancement integration into existing risk assessment/reduction processes to reduce the manpower, time, and/or logistical impact; increase the capability to characterize exposures; and provide near real-time risk information to Commanders. The FHP focus areas are Directed Energy (DE), Occupational & Environmental Health (OEH) Hazards, and Personalized Medicine Initiatives. Current projections demonstrate that the Directed Energy and Occupational & Environmental Health focus areas dominate research needs in the FHP thrust area.

Enroute Care – Focus is to maximize technological advancements and groundbreaking clinical research to match care during transport with state of the art ground medicine throughout the continuum. Research is needed to address knowledge gaps during patient transport and staging. The knowledge gained will be used to ensure that the best care is provided to our wounded/ill service members as they are moved through the system. Research/technology development is also needed on non-invasive and specific methods for assessing trauma resuscitation and timing of interventions and transport. Clinical research is needed to complement critical care and routine patient transport technology development. EC Thrust Area focus is on continuum of care during transport of patients from point of injury to point of definitive care. Key areas include: Aeromedical Evacuation (AE); Patient Staging; and Critical Care Air Transport equipment and treatment research. The three broad areas of research include:
– Physiological Effects of Aeromedical Evacuation
– Enroute Trauma and Resuscitative Care
– Enroute Patient Safety

Operational Medicine/In-Garrison – Focus in Operational Medicine is to ensure the provision of the highest quality health care for active duty members and their families. Based on the Military Health Services priorities, gaps identified in the AFMS 2009 Capabilities Review and Risk Assessment (CRRA) and the needs/gaps of the MAJCOMs, the following research focus areas were identified. Operational Medicine research and technology development focus areas include clinical patient safety, psychological health/resilience, obesity, and autism.

Expeditionary Medicine – Focus is to enhance or improve expeditionary medical care during contingency operations including: improvement of expeditionary equipment capability enhancements by addressing needs related to platform capability sustainability (energy, supplies and materials); miniaturization of equipment to reduce logistics footprint, technology identification; development and/or validation of next-generation critical humanitarian/disaster relief equipment/material sets; deployed casualty care optimization and improvements; and field identification, diagnosis and treatment of emerging threat Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) injuries. This research aims to address issues related to care in the expeditionary setting and the inherent challenges in those missions.

Human Performance: Focus in Human Performance encompasses research and technology development interests in Cognitive Performance and Fatigue Management, Physiological Performance and Targeted Conditioning, Operational and Environmental Challenges to Performance, Training for Optimal Performance of AF Medical Personnel, and Personnel Selection for Performance. These focus areas are further defined and discussed in the subsequent sections. The overall aims of AFMS Human Performance research are to enhance, optimize and maintain personnel’s performance in carrying out their assigned missions. The research performed is intended to address unique AF operational needs, with the possibility of collateral benefit to other DoD entities.

Please see the full BAA for the complete details. DO NOT submit white papers directly to Grants.gov. White papers must be submitted to the following e-mail address: det1.afrl.pkhb@wpafb.af.mil. Only proposals (2nd step) may be submitted to Grants.gov.

Force Health Protection – Focus is on prevention of injury and illness and the early recognition or detection of emerging threats. Key areas include: Bio-Surveillance; Bio agents of military relevance/Infectious Disease surveillance and identification; Occupational Toxicology, emerging threats (pandemic response, other environmental threats); and protective countermeasures.

Enroute Care – Focus is on continuum of care during transport of patients from point of injury to point of definitive care. Key areas include: Aeromedical Evacuation; Patient Staging; Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT); Medical Evacuation (MEDEVAC); and Casualty Evacuation (CASEVAC).

Operational Medicine – Focus is on definitive patient care/treatment in-garrison. Key focus areas include: clinical medicine enhancements; personalized diagnosis and treatment; traumatic brain injury; psychological health/post traumatic stress disorder; regenerative medicine; clinical patient safety; autism; and definitive care.

Expeditionary Medicine/In Garrison – Focus is on improving expeditionary medical care during contingency operations including medical countermeasures against combat and operational stressors to maximize warrior health, performance and well-being. Key focus areas include: expeditionary logistics enhancements and requirements (energy, supplies and materials) miniaturization to reduce logistics footprint; critical humanitarian/disaster relief equipment/material sets identification; deployed combat casualty care optimization and improvements in methods and techniques of remote monitoring and triage systems; Field identification, diagnosis and treatment of emerging threat Directed Energy Weapons (DEW)) injuries; infectious disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment in austere environments.

Human Performance: Focus is on operational human performance in aerospace environments – fit and healthy force; performance sustainment; occupational standards/selection; environmental and occupational health; environmental and metabolic stressors; nutrition; diagnosis of cognitive performance degradation, and applied countermeasures; assessment of cognitive demands in complex aerospace environments; fatigue management; sensory protection and sustainment (audio, tactile, visual); vision enhancement; medical team performance; medical modeling and simulation; and medical currency and competency.

Please see the full BAA announcement for the complete details. DO NOT submit white papers directly to Grants.Gov. White papers must be submitted to the following e-mail address: det1.afrl.pkhb@wpafb.af.mil. Only proposals (2nd step) may be submitted to Grants.Gov.