AMedP-8.1 casualty documentation for initial treatment and evacuation

What it is

AMedP-8.1 is a NATO Allied Medical Publication: DOCUMENTATION RELATIVE TO INITIAL MEDICAL TREATMENT AND EVACUATION. It sets out the minimum data a NATO nation's Field Medical Card (FMC) has to carry so a casualty's initial treatment and evacuation is understood by whoever receives that casualty next, from the point of injury through to a Role 1 medical treatment facility. It is issued as an agreement between nations, recorded in STANAG 2132, rather than a technical specification a supplier builds a product against.

What it covers

A hard copy FMC is treated as still necessary for initial documentation in the prehospital environment even as electronic medical documentation develops. The publication's own agreement is that "participating nations agree to include a defined set of minimum core medical data elements into nationally developed FMC or to make use of the FMC found in Annex A." A nation may add its own registrations to a nationally developed card, but "cannot exclude any item listed in this STANAG."

The minimum core medical data elements themselves are grouped into a small number of categories covering the casualty's identity, the circumstances of the injury or illness, the clinical assessment made, the treatment given, and the casualty's onward movement. This page does not reproduce that list, the card's layout, or any of its clinical entries or codes: those live in the document itself and in Annex A, which gives an example of the NATO Field Medical Card for a nation that chooses to use it rather than build its own compliant equivalent.

Who completes and carries the record

The document is addressed to NATO nations' military medical services, developed through the Committee of the Chiefs of Military Medical Services (COMEDS) and approved by nations in the Military Committee Medical Standardization Board. In practice, "the FMC is intended for use initially by the first responder at the point of injury or as soon as possible and follow the casualty en route," and the treatment facilities that handle the casualty up to Role 1 add to the same record as care continues.

The edition in front of you is Edition B, Version 1, effective on receipt in June 2023. It supersedes Edition A, Version 2, which nations were instructed to destroy on receipt of the new edition.

How nations recognise each other's documentation

The Record of Reservations is where cross-recognition is actually worked out, and several nations used it. A number keep a nationally developed card, or another allied casualty-care format already in service, rather than adopting the Annex A template outright, while at the same time recording that they will accept the NATO-format card produced by other nations. Belgium's reservation is a clear example: it continues to use its own template while recording that it accepts the Annex A card from other nations. Italy's records that its army will continue to use its own casualty card while accepting that other nations will use the NATO format or their own national variants. One reservation goes further and reserves the right to decide, under its own national legislation and policy, whether certain identifying data is recorded on the card at all.

None of this weakens the underlying agreement: a nation keeping its own format still commits to carrying the same minimum data elements the document lists, and to recognising a partner nation's FMC when a casualty is handed over.

Confidentiality and data handling

AMedP-8.1 does not itself set out how long a completed card is kept, who may see it once the casualty leaves Role 1, or how it is transferred between nations' medical services beyond being carried with the casualty. One national reservation notes only that a specific nation's own implementation of certain fields must follow that nation's own legislation and policy on data protection; that is a commitment recorded by one nation in this document, not a rule the document sets for every nation, and it is not a data protection regime in its own right.

How you are evaluated

AMedP-8.1 does not describe a certification, audit or inspection mechanism, and no organisation can be certified against it. What it describes is a national commitment: a nation that has ratified STANAG 2132 records that its own Field Medical Card, or its adoption of the NATO example in Annex A, carries every minimum data element the document lists. Several nations recorded a formal reservation rather than full compliance at the time of promulgation, which is the document's own way for a nation to state where its practice differs from the minimum set. There is no third party, notified body or accredited certifier involved: it is a matter of what a nation declares to NATO, not something a company is assessed against.

Standards it references

The document is issued under STANAG 2132, which records the nations' agreement to use it. Its own reference list, Annex B, names two further Allied Publications used elsewhere in the same casualty's journey, cited as related documentation rather than as something that must already be in place: AMedP-8.8, the Medical Warning Tag, carried under STANAG 2347, and AAMedP-1.1, Aeromedical Evacuation, carried under STANAG 3204. A national reservation separately mentions Medical Warning Tags under STANAG 2437; Annex B, not the reservation, is the document's own reference list.

Getting the document

AMedP-8.1 is published by the NATO Standardization Office and, like all NATO standardization documents, is free of charge and not sold by NATO or by us. It can be retrieved from the NATO Standardization Document Database or through a national standardization authority.

Standards it references

• STANAG 2437Background
• STANAG 2347Background
• AMedP-8.8Background
• STANAG 3204Background
• AAMedP-1.1Background