Page 51 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Summer 2014

Table 3 TCCC Card Fields Figure 3 TCCC Card completion time by scenario
(unstressed).
Field Instructions Points
Record the time of tourniquet
1. TQ Time 0-1
placement
2. Human figure Mark the location of injury 0-1-2
3. MOI Circle the mechanism of injury 0-1
4. Time Record the time of vitals 0-1
Record the level of
5. AVPU 0-1
consciousness
Record the pulse in beats per
6. Pulse 0-1
minute
7. Respirations Record the respiratory rate 0-1
8. Blood Pressure Record the blood pressure 0-1
9. Airway Circle the state of the airway 0-1
Circle the breathing
10. Breathing 0-1-2
interventions
Circle the state of the
11. Circulation 0-1
circulation and maximum of 100%, with a mean of 84.9% and an
SD of 14.87 (Table 5).

B. Recording the TCCC Card Completion Time
The unstressed TCCC card completion times are listed
Medics recorded their patient data along with interven- in Table 6, separated by injury pattern with mean com-
tions on the TCCC card after they completed their as- pletion times and SDs listed for each.
sessment and treatment of the simulated casualty. Timing
of the event began when the medic started to fill out the The stressed TCCC card completion times are listed in
first data field on the card and ended when the last data Table 7, separated by injury pattern with mean comple-
field had been filled out. The medics were instructed to tion times and SDs listed for each, and accuracy data are
state “finished” when they were done so the time-record- given in Table 8.
ers knew when to stop timing. Time was recorded on
the data collection sheet as SEC.TENTH, where 72.3s
would represent 1 minute 12.3 seconds or as MIN: SEC. Discussion
TENTH where 1:12.3 would represent the same 72.3s Combat Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan led to de-
time value. The tenth value of seconds remained the veloping successful innovations in U.S. military medicine
same for a hundredth value of 0-4 and rounded up to the and combat trauma care but also highlight shortcomings
next value for a hundredth value of 5-9.
Figure 4 TCCC Card completion time by scenario
(unstressed).
Results
There were 444 subjects who completed the TCCC card
in an unstressed academic setting with five different
treatment scenarios. The fastest unstressed card com-
pletion time was 10 seconds and the slowest time was
96 seconds, with a mean of 26.8 seconds and a stan-
dard deviation (SD) of 12.8 (Figure 3). There were 284
subjects with 14 different injury patterns in the simu-
lated combat scenarios in which the fastest stressed card
completion time was 35 seconds and the slowest was
246 seconds, with a mean of 115 seconds and an SD of
38.4 seconds (Figure 4, Table 4).

In the unstressed group of 444, the minimum accuracy
obtained was 60% and the maximum was 100%, with
a mean of 94.6% accuracy and an SHD of 8.7. The
stressed group obtained a minimum accuracy of 30%

TCCC Card Completion by Combat Medic Trainees 41