Skip to main content

Military Health System

Test of Sitewide Banner

This is a test of the sitewide banner capability. In the case of an emergency, site visitors would be able to visit the news page for addition information.

ADVISOR brings support to medical personnel in austere environments

Image of Photo of Michael Kile, LPN, the operational readiness program manger. ADVISOR provides support to medical personnel in remote operating locations (Courtesy of DHA Connected Health).

U.S. military medical personnel often serve in remote operating locations with limited external communications and often a sparse health care infrastructure. Traditional land-line phones remain their primary connection to the outside world.

When these highly trained clinicians encounter medical emergencies beyond their considerable skills and local resources, having experts on the other end of the line to guide them can vastly improve outcomes for forward-deployed patients. Providing a single point of contact makes it easier for those frontline personnel to get the immediate assistance they need, which is why the Military Health System offers the Advanced Virtual Support for Operational Forces program, or ADVISOR.

The only program of its type across the Department of Defense, ADVISOR provides global on-demand access to a full spectrum of medical tele-consultation services for emergent and urgent care. ADVISOR also delivers those services 24/7/365 in austere environments that have limited to no local specialty support.

Field medical personnel anywhere in the world can call one phone number – 1-833-ADVSRLN (1-833-238-7756 or DSN 312-429-9089) – and get immediate live help in 13 different medical specialties, from emergency care and critical care, to infectious diseases and toxicology.

Think of ADVISOR as a "phone-a-friend" capability that connects field medical personnel with the MHS' best experts for when medical situations require assistance far from home – similar in spirit to NASA's Mission Control. Field personnel are not on the Moon, but handling a medical crisis in faraway, resource-constrained locations can feel that way.

Imagine being hundreds of miles from the nearest medical facility and having to answer the question, "I have two intravenous saline bags, three bandages, and a lollipop stick from last night's Meals Ready to Eat – how do I keep this patient alive until the chopper comes?"

With ADVISOR, field medics get real-time access to capabilities they otherwise lack and guidance on improvising care using whatever resources are at hand – huge confidence and capability boosters that can make a life-or-death difference for patients.

Goal: 100 percent survival

ADVISOR aims to provide the same level of clinical accuracy as in-facility care and achieve a 100% survivability rate of casualties with potentially survivable wounds. The program enables virtual access to advanced monitoring and decision support systems to improve remote casualty location, triage, and treatment for:

  • Emergent care, including combat casualty care, advanced critical care, and prolonged care when evacuation is delayed
  • Urgent care, including specialty and emergency care consults and remote medical and behavioral health diagnosis and treatment
  • Routine care by connecting field medics to the MHS' Global Teleconsultation Portal system

ADVISOR's integrated, interoperable system works across all DOD platforms and networks and flexibly scales to whatever technology resources field clinicians have available, from text message to video. At all times, callers can reach two staff providers for each specialty, who have both operational and virtual health experience.

ADVISOR currently has 127 volunteer providers from all three services, many of whom are chiefs of departments at their respective medical institutions. Providers commit to helping service members solve problems in the field based on real-time conditions, resources, and challenges on the ground.

Hundreds of Consultations

ADVISOR started in June 2017 as a pilot program for Special Operations Forces. Since then, it has supported clinicians throughout all combatant commands, as well as from NATO and other partners in multi-national operations.

To date, ADVISOR has provided 322 real-world emergent care or urgent care consultations, mostly in emergency care and infectious disease cases. Additionally, ADVISOR has been a valuable resource for garrison care as a centralized consultation line, supporting smaller military hospitals and clinics lacking onsite specialty capabilities.

ADVISOR has also aided pre-deployment training to help increase field clinicians' skills in prolonged field care and delayed evacuation care. Additionally, the program has provided 427 training consultations across all military branches, predominantly in critical care and general surgery.

User feedback for ADVISOR has been overwhelmingly positive. More than 90% of those surveyed said ADVISOR was easy to access, and the quality of their remote consultant's recommendations were above average or exceptional.

COVID-19 Response

ADVISOR's capabilities became profoundly useful in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic that swept the globe in March 2020. All U.S.-based MHS medical treatment facilities faced an unprecedented surge in cases while enforcing distancing requirements to keep patients and providers safe. These constraints limited providers' ability to evacuate many patients to higher-level care and made ensuring continuity of care and high-quality outcomes more challenging.

To help MHS clinicians, ADVISOR immediately reworked its workflows to provide on-demand COVID-19-related services for pediatric and adult critical care, infectious disease, and palliative care to all military hospitals and clinics. ADVISOR continues to contribute to the MHS' five-tier COVID-19 response plan, which supports virtual health throughout the enterprise from a foundation of telephone-based communication all the way up to tele-critical care.

Looking Forward

Offering access to capabilities across the MHS anytime, anywhere by phone and other electronic means is a dream MHS providers have had for decades. For instance, when I was chief wardmaster of the 47th Combat Support Hospital at the former Fort Lewis in Washington state, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I brought a copy of Madigan Army Medical Center's phone book with me on every deployment. ADVISOR helps fulfill that dream and is a successful example of virtual health technology solutions that make it easy to deliver more capability wherever and whenever needed.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated demand for such solutions, which will be a permanent and growing part of the health care landscape going forward. This ongoing evolution will in turn improve operational readiness while decreasing the costs and complexities of care delivery.

Through ADVISOR and other virtual health programs, the MHS can leverage the capabilities of the largest health care system in the world to improve the readiness, health, and well-being of all MHS beneficiaries.

You also may be interested in...

FLOTEX-22

Photo
1/31/2023
U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Dante Horner, a corpsman with 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, performs tactical combat casualty care during Spanish FLOTEX-22 near Rota, Spain, June 9, 2022. This exercise features tactical level actions ashore, combined with joint training and planning, aimed at increasing overall bilateral interoperability between nations. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Megan Ozaki)

U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Dante Horner, a corpsman with 1st Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division, performs tactical combat casualty care during Spanish FLOTEX-22 near Rota, Spain, June 9, 2022. This exercise features tactical level actions ashore, combined with joint training and planning, aimed at increasing overall bilateral interoperability between nations. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Megan Ozaki)

Protecting Your Hearing and Vision is a Personal Readiness Mission

Photo
6/14/2022
Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Dominique Campbell drives a forklift on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) during a vertical replenishment. She is wearing proper hearing and vision protection.

Aviation Ordnanceman 3rd Class Dominique Campbell drives a forklift on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) during a vertical replenishment. She is wearing proper hearing and vision protection.

Expeditionary Medical Integration

Photo
5/12/2022
Military personnel in medical training

U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy Corpsmen with 1st Marine Division asses the injuries under the supervision of evaluators during an Expeditionary Medical Integration Course (EMIC) on Camp Pendleton, California May 5, 2022.

Iraq Bomb Attack Led Soldier to Pursue Medical Career

Photo
5/12/2022
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Mathew Maxwell (Left) and U.S. Capt. Brian Ahern, medical personnel assigned to a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) recovery team, check the pulse of a local villager during excavation operations in the Houaphan province, Laos, Feb. 5, 2019.

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Mathew Maxwell (Left) and U.S. Capt. Brian Ahern, medical personnel assigned to a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency recovery team, check the pulse of a local villager during excavation operations in the Houaphan province, Laos, Feb. 5, 2019. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Michael O'Neal)

Hearing Problems Decline

Photo
12/14/2021
Soldiers wear hearing protection while firing an M3 multi-role anti-armor antipersonnel weapon system during live-fire training at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Sept. 15, 2021.

Hearing loss in the Department of Defense continues to decrease for service members and civilians enrolled in hearing conservation programs.

WICC Podcast

Photo
10/18/2021
WICCArticleImg3A

Today’s female service member population is now at 17%.

Desktop to Datacenter initiative explained at DHITS 2018

Photo
7/26/2018
Mark Goodge, chief technology officer for the Defense Health Agency, speaks to attendees of the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium about the agency Desktop to Datacenter initiative.

Mark Goodge, chief technology officer for the Defense Health Agency, speaks to attendees of the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium about the agency Desktop to Datacenter initiative.

MHS Health IT Awards

Photo
7/24/2018
On July 24, 2018, at the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Service members and employees from across the Military Health System were recognized who have made significant contributions and demonstrated outstanding excellence and achievement in Health Information Technology (HIT) in the past year.

On July 24, 2018, at the Defense Health Information Technology Symposium in Orlando, Fla., Service members and employees from across the Military Health System were recognized who have made significant contributions and demonstrated outstanding excellence and achievement in Health Information Technology (HIT) in the past year.

No Patient Left Behind

Photo
7/26/2017
Army Col. Rich Wilson (left) moderates a panel discussion with current and former program managers from the Defense Health Agency's Solution Delivery Division. The panel, titled No Patient Left Behind: Leveraging Partnerships for Change, discussed the importance of supporting patient care during modernization as the MHS transitions legacy applications to new systems. Focusing on enterprise planning, patient risk mitigation, and the balance of investment, the panel discussed the importance of positive government and vendor relationships and ways to apply past experiences to build strategies for success in the future.

Army Col. Rich Wilson (left) moderates a panel discussion with current and former program managers from the Defense Health Agency's Solution Delivery Division. The panel, titled No Patient Left Behind: Leveraging Partnerships for Change, discussed the importance of supporting patient care during modernization as the MHS transitions legacy applications to new systems. Focusing on enterprise planning, patient risk mitigation, and the balance of investment, the panel discussed the importance of positive government and vendor relationships and ways to apply past experiences to build strategies for success in the future.

Battlefield Medicine Course

Photo
9/28/2016
U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Michael Triana, left, 347th Operations Support Squadron independent duty medical technician-paramedic, addresses injuries on a simulated patient during a tactical combat casualty care course, in Okeechobee, Florida. The course tests and reinforces participants’ lifesaving medical skills while they are in high-stress, combat scenarios. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Callaghan)

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Michael Triana, left, 347th Operations Support Squadron independent duty medical technician-paramedic, addresses injuries on a simulated patient during a tactical combat casualty care course, in Okeechobee, Florida. The course tests and reinforces participants’ lifesaving medical skills while they are in high-stress, combat scenarios. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Callaghan)

Orient Shield

Photo
9/26/2016
Japan Ground Self-Defense Force medics carry a casualty from an ambulance to a JGSDF helicopter while a U.S. Army medic calls directions during a bilateral medical training exercise.

Japan Ground Self-Defense Force medics carry a casualty from an ambulance to a JGSDF helicopter while a U.S. Army medic calls directions during a bilateral medical training exercise.

Soldiers from the 7th Mission Support Command

Photo
9/23/2016
Soldiers from the 7th Mission Support Command, Medical Support Unit-Europe conduct medical evacuation training with Staff Sgt. Jessie Turner, flight medic with the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Chlosta)

Soldiers from the 7th Mission Support Command, Medical Support Unit-Europe conduct medical evacuation training with Staff Sgt. Jessie Turner, flight medic with the 1st Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Chlosta)

MEDEVAC Helicopter

Photo
9/23/2016
It is important for Soldiers to know what to expect when a MEDEVAC helicopter arrives and how to approach the helicopters, load patients aboard and how to interact with their crew chief and flight medic in order to do ground handoffs. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Chlosta)

It is important for Soldiers to know what to expect when a MEDEVAC helicopter arrives and how to approach the helicopters, load patients aboard and how to interact with their crew chief and flight medic in order to do ground handoffs. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Chlosta)

Ukrainian soldiers on field litter ambulances

Photo
9/20/2016
A Ukrainian Soldier uses hand signals during a ground guide exercise of field litter ambulance familiarization on the driving range at Yavoriv Training Area, Ukraine. A team of medics and a mechanic from 557th Medical Company and 212th Combat Support Hospital are working together to conduct field littler ambulance and medical equipment  familiarization with the Ukrainian military. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jeku)

A Ukrainian Soldier uses hand signals during a ground guide exercise of field litter ambulance familiarization on the driving range at Yavoriv Training Area, Ukraine. A team of medics and a mechanic from 557th Medical Company and 212th Combat Support Hospital are working together to conduct field littler ambulance and medical equipment familiarization with the Ukrainian military. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jeku)

Big Rescue Kanagawa 2016

Photo
9/20/2016
Navy Lt. Cmdr. Reginaldo Cagampan, left, and Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Rocky Pambid, members of the U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka Emergency Response Team, treat a simulated patient during the 2016 Big Rescue Kanagawa Disaster Prevention Joint Drill in Yokosuka city, Japan. Multiple agencies took part in the drill including the U.S. Navy, Army and Air Force, as well as personnel from the Japan Self-Defense Force and Japanese government agencies. (U.S. Navy photo by Greg Mitchell)

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Reginaldo Cagampan, left, and Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Rocky Pambid, members of the U.S. Naval Hospital Yokosuka Emergency Response Team, treat a simulated patient during the 2016 Big Rescue Kanagawa Disaster Prevention Joint Drill in Yokosuka city, Japan. Multiple agencies took part in the drill including the U.S. Navy, Army and Air Force, as well as personnel from the Japan Self-Defense Force and Japanese government agencies. (U.S. Navy photo by Greg Mitchell)

Page 1 of 1 , showing items 1 - 15
Refine your search
Last Updated: July 20, 2022
Follow us on Instagram Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on YouTube Sign up on GovDelivery