Anna Prendegast, Melissa Conner, and colleagues from the Office of Military Medicine at Nellis AFB, along with Kavita Batra, Perez Oppong, and Jeremy Kilburn (Medicine), recently published a study titled, "A QuEST for Nursing Clinical Activity Exposure: Comparison of the Military Treatment Facility and a Civilian Level I Trauma Center," in the journal Military Medicine.

The study compares the clinical exposure and prolonged casualty care skills of Air Force nurses working at Military Treatment Facilities (MTFs) versus those participating in a Military-Civilian Partnership (MCP) at a Level I trauma center in Las Vegas. Utilizing the Quantitative Expeditionary Skills Tracker (QuEST), the authors identified significant gaps in MTFs' ability to replicate the high-acuity, prolonged care environments required for operational readiness. The findings underscore the importance of expanding MCP opportunities or enhancing MTF clinical experiences for nurses. Additionally, the study showcases the effective use of QuEST as a tool for capturing objective readiness data and proposes a framework for future data tracking among non-provider and enlisted personnel.