AUSTERE EMERGENCY CARE

What is Austere Emergency Care? 

To understand Austere Emergency Care, you should first understand the concept of Prolonged Field Care (PFC). PFC is a robust set of clinical practice guidelines, position papers, and operational medicine concepts and best practices that were developed from more than a decade of military, particularly special forces, operations conducted outside well-developed combat theaters where providers were often faced with extended care timelines (days, rather than hours).

However, PFC is not a defined curriculum, set of learning objectives, or certification. It is effectively a discussion of medical preparedness in a challenging operational environment. As the discussion of appropriate medical preparedness developed around PFC, there became a need for a formal course of instruction to better prepare prehospital providers for the challenging operational environments they face, military and civilian. This was the genesis of the Austere Emergency Care Course concept – bringing military best practices to a broader international audience to raise the level of care in resource-limited prehospital settings.

The Austere Emergency Care course consists of basic and advanced tracks. They are complementary and run concurrently, with many common educational objectives and shared scenarios. The AEC course consists of a pre-test, 10-hour baseline online instruction, a 4-day in-person experience, and a post-test.  Completion of all components constitutes the 40-hour continuing education “AEC course.”