Tactical emergency medical support.

As increases in criminal activity collide with more aggressive law enforcement postures, there is more contact between police officers and violent felons. Civilian law enforcement special operations teams routinely engage suspects in these violent, dynamic, and complex interdiction activities. Along with these activities comes the substantial and foreseeable risk of death or grievous harm to law officers, bystanders, hostages, or perpetrators. Further, law enforcement agencies who attempt to apprehend dangerous, heavily armed criminals with a special operations team that lacks the expertise to treat the medical consequences that may arise from such a confrontation may be negligent of deliberate indifference. Meanwhile, evidence exists within the military, civilian law enforcement, and medical literature that on-scene TEMS serves to improve mission success and team safety and health, while decreasing morbidity and mortality in the event of an injury or illness suffered during operations. National professional organizations within law enforcement and emergency medicine have identified and support the fundamental need for mission safety and the development of a standard model to train and incorporate TEMS into law enforcement special operations. The overall objective of TEMS is to minimize the potential for injury and illness and to promote optimal medical care from the scene of operations to a definitive care facility. The design, staffing, and implementation of a TEMS program that maximally uses the community resources integrates previously disparate law enforcement, EMS, and emergency medical/trauma center functions to form a new continuum of care [55].