Page 110 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Summer 2014

Results Figure 2 Patient encounters by mission and occurrence.
During the 5-year study period, the MSP TMU provided
operational medical support for 1,148 tactical missions.
Excluded from analysis were 103 entries that contained
missing or incomplete data. Also excluded from analysis
were three data entries that represented influenza vacci-
nations administered by the MSP tactical paramedics to
law enforcement personnel during the H1N1 Influenza
outbreak. Descriptive analysis was performed on the re-
maining 1,042 tactical missions. The most commonly
occurring mission type was high-risk warrant service,
which accounted for 45% (470/1,042) of missions. This
was followed by 25% (259/1,042) law enforcement
training support missions and 15% (157/1,042) medi-
cal standbys for law enforcement operations. Figure 1
displays the breakdown of all missions.

Figure 1 Number of missions.
patients (5%; 19/367). Figure 2 provides a breakdown
of missions with patients. A detailed analysis of the 367
patient encounters during the study period is given in
Figure 3.

A subgroup analysis of all clinical encounters evaluated
all chief complaints during each mission. High-risk war-
rant service operations represented the most frequently
occurring mission, accounting for 470 total missions. A
total of 88 unique patient encounters occurred during 75
of these missions. Law enforcement/tactical team mem-
bers comprised two-thirds (66%; 58/88) of the patient
encounters, followed by civilian patients (25%; 22/88)
and suspects (10%; 9/88). The most common chief com-
plaints encountered were musculoskeletal pain/injury
(17%; 15/88), fatigue/sleep deprivation (11%; 10/88),
upper respiratory infection symptoms (11%; 10/88),
and nasal congestion/rhinorrhea (10.2%, 9/88). De-
tailed analysis data are displayed in Table 1.

Figure 3 Chief complaints.
Of the 1,042 missions analyzed, 205 missions resulted
in one or more patient encounters. There were 367
total patient encounters during the study period. The
number of patient encounters was stratified by type of
mission. The missions with the highest number of pa-
tient contacts were training activities, which resulted
in 29% (108/367) clinical encounters. This was fol-
lowed by high-risk warrant service (24%; 88/367).
Mass gathering events had the third highest number of
clinical encounters (20%; 75/367). The majority (67%;
246/367) of patients encountered were law enforcement
tactical team personnel. Nearly a third (28%; 102/367)
of the patients treated by tactical medics consisted of
civilians/bystanders. Individuals identified as possible
suspects were the least common encountered type of

100 Journal of Special Operations Medicine Volume 14, Edition 2/Summer 2014