Regional Health Command Europe recently conducted its first-ever ‘virtual’ Global Health Engagement with their Polish military medical counterparts. The two-day virtual event was held Feb. 3-4 and consisted of briefings and presentations by subject matter experts from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force.

Brig. Gen. (Dr.) Mark Thompson Regional Health Command Europe commanding general and the U.S. Army Europe-Africa command surgeon, kicked off the two-day virtual event by providing opening remarks.

“This event provides our medical professionals with a greater understanding of how the United States and Polish medical forces electronically document patient care,” said Thompson. “It is critical for our service members and our systems to be able to operate in the joint and combined environment to bolster an extended network of alliances and partnerships capable of decisively meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow.”

Global health engagements are part of an ongoing program with the Polish military. In 2019, RHCE medical engagements included medical surgical conferences in Poland and Germany and a Multinational Military Medical Engagement in Lviv, Ukraine.

“We value our partnership with our Polish military medical counterparts,” said Col. Patrick Contino, chief of clinical operations for Regional Health Command Europe. “We continue to learn valuable lessons from each other and events like this are critical to forming a long and lasting bond between our two countries. I sincerely hope our relationship with our Polish military medical partners continues well into the future.”

Over the course of the two-day virtual engagement, presentations were given by medical experts on a variety of topics to include; patient movement request and tracking process, aeromedical evacuation, enroute patient staging and medical communications for combat casualty care among others.

On the first day of the global health engagement, U.S. Air Force medical experts provided briefings that focused on aeromedical evacuation, enroute patient staging and the patient movement request and tracking process.

“The intended outcome of the two-day virtual engagement was to build partnerships, enhance readiness, and improve capabilities of the U.S. and Polish medical forces,” said Maj. Ivan Egusquiza, chief of patient administration for Regional Health Command Europe. “However, the focus of this specific event was to exchange information and ideas on processes regarding patient movement, medical regulating, and medical documentation through the roles of care.”

As part of his closing remarks on the last day of the conference, Thompson said, “Please take what you learned from this virtual engagement and use it to enhance the readiness of our medical forces, and ensure the medical readiness of our joint and combined forces. I hope you’ve used this opportunity to engage with your fellow participants and will continue to cultivate those relationships. We truly are stronger together.”