Blood type patches, TCCC, and trauma care

[1168]

You’re misunderstanding me (my fault, of course). Yes, Army dudes get typed in the beginning (MEPS, I think), and tags issued. Always have in the modern era, as far as I know. They just haven’t historically gotten re-typed later on unless there was a medical reason. So there could be undiscovered errors on ID tags, and by proxy, patches. At one time, I knew the percentage of errors, and I don’t remember it now, but I wouldn’t have called it “rare”. It surprised the shit out of me when I learned it. I’d have to imagine it improved after whoever it was studied the problem. I would hope.

Walking blood banks will likely improve this for conventional forces, going forward. The ball has already been set in motion. At least one 68w(medic) recert course has been teaching it.

In SOF, WBBs are pretty much a mature and fleshed out SOP at this point.

Presenting it at a conference is pretty cool.

I have been out of the service for a minute, but when did it become policy to not type everyone at boot? Or am I misreading (very possible)? That used to be the practice; EVERYONE (in the Navy and Marines at least, can't speak to the Army and AF) got typed in boot with dog tags reflecting. And we did at batt level in the deployment work-ups. If someone's tag was wrong (rare, but it's the military), we'd issue new tags, and always issued new red allergy tags. No one gets blood based on tags, everyone gets O- until role/echelon 2. But we did use the info on the tag for forward a "hold up" if the person was something like AB or B-.

Currently SF is typing for their walking blood bank (WBB). I was working week before last with some folks from 3rd group with this program. The deltas have excel with the types on their ODAs, and the info is distributed in several areas so there's always a back up. They are getting type-specific blood. This is going all-SOCOM; the idea is it will go army wide in some protocol (don't know if type-specific or generic O-) like TCCC did.

WBB is an interesting concept. I may be presenting at a conference in the fall on it if I can get my shit together and submit in time.

[1168]

From 1999:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10578589/

[chuckman]

You’re misunderstanding me (my fault, of course). Yes, Army dudes get typed in the beginning (MEPS, I think), and tags issued. Always have in the modern era, as far as I know. They just haven’t historically gotten re-typed later on unless there was a medical reason. So there could be undiscovered errors on ID tags, and by proxy, patches. At one time, I knew the percentage of errors, and I don’t remember it now, but I wouldn’t have called it “rare”. It surprised the shit out of me when I learned it. I’d have to imagine it improved after whoever it was studied the problem. I would hope.

Walking blood banks will likely improve this for conventional forces, going forward. The ball has already been set in motion. At least one 68w(medic) recert course has been teaching it.

In SOF, WBBs are pretty much a mature and fleshed out SOP at this point.

Presenting it at a conference is pretty cool.

Per my wife, any issues in communications are my fault, and mine alone, so I am OK in owning misunderstanding

The original action at Ranger Batt that lead to WBB is still classified, but I was at a meeting in which it was discussed. Holy shit. The Ranger medic is teaching at Bragg, I am trying to connect with him.

One of the things we talked about a couple weeks ago when 3rd group guys were up was streamlining and uniformity of the process. I got from them there are still units and teams that have somewhat differing protocols. Next week I have a meeting with the chief doc at MARSOC, I hope to discuss this as well. Those processes will, of course, tighten as the program moves forward.

If you have any WBB info to share I would be delighted to have.

[1168]

Chuckman, I’ll shoot you a text next week or this weekend. I’ll be hanging out with some nerds that can help you more.