The Rewarding Challenge of Measuring Readiness to Deploy.

Estimating individual readiness of military and civilian nursing personnel for deployment to austere environments challenges the best of us. Despite decades of conflicts, crises, and disasters around the world, measuring individual readiness for deployment remains elusive. However difficult, quantifying individual readiness is critical to provide commanders and leaders with information to drive education, training, and preparation. It is simply not enough to focus on immunizations, wills, and equipment issue. Readiness is exceedingly more complex, as we have learned from candid input by those who have deployed. After clarifying the concept of readiness, measuring readiness was the next step. Both were undertaken with funding support from the congressionally sponsored Tri-Service Nursing Research Program. This editorial summarizes a long-term program of science: the investigator-constructed instrument itself, called the Readiness Estimate and Deployability Index (READI); lessons learned from testing; and future applications.