Army Health System (ATTP 4-02)

This publication, "Army Health System," provides the capstone doctrine for the Army Health System (AHS) in support of the modular force. The Army Health System is the overarching concept of support for providing timely medical support to the tactical commander. It discusses the current medical force structure modernized under the Department of the Army (DA) approved Medical Reengineering Initiative and the Modular Medical Force that is designed to support the brigade combat teams and echelons above brigade units. As the Army's capstone medical doctrine statement, this publication identifies medical functions and procedures that are essential for operations covered in other Army Medical Department (AMEDD) proponent manuals. This publication depicts Army Health System operations from the point of injury, illness, or wounding through successive roles of care within the theater and evacuation to the continental United States (CONUS) support base. It presents a stable body of operational doctrine rooted in actual military experience and serves as a foundation for the development of AMEDD proponent manuals on how the AHS supports the modular force. The AHS is a component of the Department of Defense (DOD) Military Health System. It is responsible for the operational management of the health service support (HSS) and force health protection (FHP) missions for training, predeployment, deployment, and post deployment operations. The AHS includes all mission support services performed, provided, or arranged by the AMEDD to support HSS and FHP mission requirements for the Army and as directed, for joint, intergovernmental agencies, and multinational forces. Although Joint doctrine describes the capabilities of the Military Health System as a taxonomy of care, this description does not adequately address how the AMEDD must organize and equip its forces to successfully accomplish the health care delivery in the noncontiguous operational environment. Therefore, the AHS is in consonance with and supports the concept of the taxonomy of care, but AMEDD support is discussed in terms of capability packages specifically designed to support Army formations. Although the Military Health System is an interrelated system which may share medical services, capabilities, and specialties among the Service components, it is not a joint mission command system. Each Service component develops its medical resources to support its Service-specific mission. This results in the development of different types of organizations with varying levels of capability, mobility, and survivability. Although joint medical resources may have similar nomenclature to describe the unit, they are not usually interchangeable.