Page 156 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Spring 2015

Establishing TEMS Training Standards
for Patrol Officers and Initial Responders

COL (Ret) Andre Pennardt, MD, FACEP

he National TEMS Council (NTEMSC) met on 7–8 provider serving on tactical law enforcement teams. The
TDecember 2014 in Tampa, FL, to continue the work emphasis during the most recent meeting was to simi­
of defining national training standards for various lev­ larly establish TLOs and ELOs for two additional levels
els of tactical medicine providers. The NTEMSC had of TEMS care, the patrol officer (PO) and initial medical
in previous meetings established 17 critical TEMS com­ responder (IMR). The PO was defined as a law enforce­
petency domains, which, in turn, had been revalidated ment officer who is not assigned as a member of a tacti­
unanimously by all stakeholders attending a Depart­ cal team. The IMR was defined as any medical provider,
ment of Homeland Security (DHS)­sponsored meeting such as a firefighter, first responder, or EMS technician,
on TEMS standardization on 25 June 2014, in Washing­ who is not assigned to regularly provide medical support
ton, DC. These 17 domains include: to a tactical team. Stakeholders considered establishing
minimum TEMS training standards for these two levels
• Tactical Combat Casualty Care (TCCC)/Tactical Emer­ as a priority, since the PO and IMR are the most likely
gency Casualty Care (TECC) Methodology primary responders for an active shooter or other mass
• Remote Assessment and Surrogate Care casualty–causing tactical event.
• Rescue/Extraction
• Hemostasis Draft learning objectives for PO and IMR are currently
• Airway being disseminated to various TEMS stakeholders across
• Breathing the nation for electronic review and voting. TEMS pro­
• Circulation viders who are not currently members of the NTEMSC
• Medication Administration but wish to join and participate in the validation of na­
• Casualty Immobilization tional training standards, should contact Chuck Hal­
• Medical Planning come, the chairman of the NTEMSC Board of Directors,
• Force Health Protection at k9tacmedic@gmail.com for addition to the distribu­
• Environmental Factors tion list. The final TLOs and ELOs for the domains
• Mechanisms and Patterns of Injury applicable to the PO and IMR training levels will be pub­
• Legal Aspects of TEMS lished in a future edition of the JSOM. The NTEMSC
• Hazardous Materials Management will also develop training standards for TEMS medical
• Mass Casualty Triage directors in 2015 and strongly encourages all interested
• Tactical Familarization medical directors to participate in this effort.

The terminal and enabling learning objectives (TLOs
and ELOs) for each of the 17 domains had previously
been established for the levels of operator and medical

146 Journal of Special Operations Medicine Volume 15, Edition 1/Spring 2015