Medical Total Force Management: Assessing Readiness and Cost

The military medical force is an important warfighting resource, but it is also large and expensive. This paper extends past medical force mix analyses to include assessment of clinical readiness and the trade-off between Active and Reserve forces. Limited volume of readiness-related workload at military hospitals hinders clinical readiness of Active forces, requiring reconsideration of alternative force mix options. Four alternatives are studied: Active Duty providers stationed in military hospitals that have been expanded to become trauma centers, Active Duty providers stationed in civilian facilities, Reserve forces working in civilian employment that maintains clinical currency, and strategic Reserve forces maintained by civilian trauma centers. This paper finds that a more effectively managed mix of these alternatives can attain a higher level of readiness at lower cost and that military-to-civilian conversion opportunities are more numerous than previous research has found.