AMedP-9.3 credentialing for Role 2/3 multinational medical units

What it is

What AMedP-9.3 covers

AMedP-9.3 is the NATO Allied Medical Publication that sets out how health care professionals are credentialed and privileged before they take up a post in a Role 2/3 multinational medical unit (MMU). "This policy will apply to all Role 2/3MMUs, established within the context of a Combined Joint Task Force, where participating Nations (PNs) contribute health care personnel." It is a short, two-chapter document: definitions and a professional-standards policy, then the responsibilities of the Lead Nation, the contributing nation and the unit's own medical leadership. It does not cover how a Role 2/3 MMU is organised, staffed or equipped in general - that is other documents' territory.

How it comes to bind

"The agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 6526": the STANAG is the agreement nations make to use AMedP-9.3, and this document carries the procedure itself. The publication took effect on receipt in August 2020. There is no contract-clause route into it for a commercial supplier: it obliges the nations contributing health care personnel to a Role 2/3 MMU, not a defence supply chain.

Credentialing: who verifies what

The document defines "Credentials" as "the documents describing the education, training, licensing and certification of a health care professional," and "Credentialing" as "the process of obtaining, assessing and verifying" them. Each Participating Nation is responsible for credentialing the health care professionals it contributes, and as a minimum that verification covers: the individual's requisite qualifications; their professional registration with "the appropriate national regulatory body," including confirmation they are "not subject to any professional censure or disciplinary or legal limitations to their practice," and, where relevant, their standing on a national specialist register; medical and dental fitness for the role; language skills, including medical terminology; the experience and clinical currency the Lead Nation sets for the post; and completion of military-specific pre-deployment training. The Surgeon General of the Participating Nation, or a designated deputy, carries out this verification and gives the Lead Nation written confirmation that its professionals "are credentialed, in according with this AMedP." Fitness for role is checked "in accordance with AMedP-4.4". Credentialing itself "must take place as early as reasonably practicable," and applies equally to every nation contributing to a given facility.

Privileging: how it is recognised across nations

Credentialing establishes that a professional is qualified in general; privileging is the separate decision, made inside the unit by the Deployed Medical Director (DMD), of exactly what that professional is authorised to do there. The document defines "Privileges" as the scope of practice and procedures a professional "is authorised to independently perform." Recognition across nations is pragmatic rather than a fresh assessment from scratch: confirming privileges "may simply be an endorsement of the privileges at the Medical Treatment Facility (MTF) where the individual usually practices, if the DMD deems the privileges appropriate for the Role 2/3MMU." Once someone is in post, the DMD keeps that decision under review through "the embedded Clinical Supervision program" and "a periodic review process to assure Clinical Quality Assurance," and can modify privileges working with the unit's Medical Commander or the contingent's own commander. Every health care professional is expected to "practice within the scope of privileges assigned by the DMD."

Personal data and civil licensing

AMedP-9.3 does not say how a professional's credentialing record is stored, protected or retained once verified - it requires the verification and a written confirmation that it took place, and goes no further. It names no data-protection regime. What it does rely on is the professional's own existing civil standing: the document describes a health care professional as "registered/licensed" by "the appropriate regulatory/professional body," and asks the credentialing nation to confirm with "the appropriate national regulatory body" that no censure, discipline or legal limitation applies. The national licence or registration itself is not something this document, or NATO, issues or holds; it belongs to the individual clinician under their own national law.

Where it points beyond itself

AMedP-9.3 "complements" STANAG 2560, which evaluates a Role 2/3 MMU's own medical capability - a separate exercise from credentialing the individuals who staff it. It also ties one specific check, medical and dental fitness, to AMedP-4.4. Beyond those, and the STANAG 6526 agreement that gives it force, it names no other standard.

Standards it references

• STANAG 2560Background
• AMedP-4.4Background