Characterizing military medical evacuation dispatching and delivery policies via a self-exciting spatio-temporal Hawkes process model

The military medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) system is the primary method to evacuate time-sensitive combat casualties from the battlefield to appropriately staffed and equipped medical treatment facilities (MTFs). The intent of this paper is to analyze how MTF capability and capacity impact MEDEVAC system performance. We develop a self-exciting spatio-temporal Hawkes process model as well as a notional, synthetically generated MEDEVAC scenario of the post-Bosnian War to evaluate and compare eight distinct MEDEVAC dispatching and delivery policies within a high-intensity combat environment. The results garnered from this paper highlight the substantial impact MTFs have on MEDEVAC systems and should be considered in future research.