KADENA AIR BASE, Japan -- The 18th Medical Group tested Project Lavoy, a new program enabling Airmen to perform whole blood collections and transfusions anywhere at any time.
Project Lavoy assists Airmen by utilizing blood transfusion field kits to provide medical personnel options in delivering necessary blood to contingency casualty patients.
"The goal of Project Lavoy is to provide life-saving blood at the point of injury through whole blood field collections and transfusions using proprietary transfusion kits specifically designed to meet the needs of our medics on the ground,” said U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Paul Ellis, 18th Operational Medical Readiness Squadron, senior enlisted leader. " The name Project Lavoy was done to honor our teammate who was on the jumpstart of the project. Everything we are doing is in honor of him, as we move forward with something that he felt it critical to saving lives in the future fight."
Blood can be logistically hard to get into a deployed environment. It has to be airlifted in from overseas with limited storage space. This, combined with a short shelf life, means that blood will always be in short supply.
“80% of deaths in the military during contingency operations have been due to severe blood loss,” said Ellis.
This new training is already being executed within the 18 Wing thanks to the 31st Rescue Squadron independent duty medical technicians and flight doctors as subject matter experts to help develop and refine the training.
One successful training & field training exercise was completed and future trainers have been assigned to prove and secure the scalability of Project Lavoy.