Analyzing the Impact of Triage Classification Errors on Military Medical Evacuation Dispatching Policies

This paper analyzes how triage classification errors and blood transfusion kits impact military medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) system performance with regards to dispatching policies. A discounted, infinite-horizon Markov decision process (MDP) model is formulated to analyze the MEDEVAC dispatching problem. A notional, representational scenario based in Azerbaijan is utilized to compare the MDP-generated policies to current practices. Results reveal the MDP-generated dispatching policy outperforms the currently practiced dispatching policy by 2.18%. Triage classification errors negatively impact system performance between 0.6% and 2.5% for the scenarios analyzed. Moreover, the inclusion of blood transfusion kits on board aircraft increase MEDEVAC system performance between 2.83% and 4.37%, depending on which units are equipped.