Medical Simulation and Information Sciences | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Department of Defense, through DOD-AMRAA, offered a Medical Simulation and Information Sciences funding opportunity (W81XWH-16-R-MSI1) focused on a project called PREEMPT, short for Predictive Personality and Emotional State Performance Determinants for Training. The core aim was to build a proof-of-concept task performance assessment tool that can predict how well an individual will perform and how much stress they will experience when placed in demanding combat casualty care situations and other high-pressure, patient-care-relevant environments. Rather than only measuring performance after the fact, the program emphasizes prediction: using measurable factors about the individual to anticipate performance outcomes under stress before or during training.

The research scope for this specific solicitation narrowed in on two determinants thought to influence performance in stressful medical scenarios: personality and emotional state. In this announcement, personality is defined broadly as the non-physical characteristics that distinguish one person from another, while emotional states are described as the subjective interpretations of complex internal states in response to a person, object, or situation, which then indirectly shape behavior. Applicants were expected to investigate how these two factors relate to performance and stress, and then use that understanding to support three practical capabilities: assessing overall performance and stress levels during combat casualty care scenarios, breaking down (or deconstructing) performance into separate personality-driven and emotional-state-driven components, and recombining those components into a model that can predict overall task performance on known tasks, particularly when conditions are stressful.

A key feature of the program is its intended user population. The primary focus is on individuals preparing to become military combat medics, corpsmen, pararescuemen, or special operations combat medics, although the government allowed that other nearly equivalent populations could be considered if properly justified. The pilot effort was expected to compare participant performance against existing military entry standards for the relevant role whenever possible. If a team could not use an official entry standard, they were expected to propose an alternative benchmark that is as comparable as possible and justify it clearly, ideally with data showing how outcomes differ for people trained to a standard versus those who are not. Beyond initial selection and prediction, the solicitation also noted that the resulting assessment tools might later support sustainment and refresher training by tracking task performance and stress over time.

From a study design perspective, the opportunity emphasized methodological clarity and control. Applicants needed to clearly define the tasks being assessed, explain and define task difficulty, and provide evaluation criteria along with descriptions of the measurement instruments used. Importantly, task difficulty and conditions were expected to be held constant within the proposed project so that differences in performance could be more credibly attributed to the individual determinants under study (personality and emotional state), rather than shifting scenario complexity or inconsistent testing environments. The anticipated integration approach was practical and incremental: components would be brought together for initial, laboratory-based testing to see how well the combined system functions as a coherent assessment and prediction tool.

Overall, the program frames task performance as the visible end result of interacting determinants at a specific time and place: personality, emotional state, and task difficulty. PREEMPT’s larger goal is to identify which personality and emotional-state factors meaningfully drive performance under stress, and then use those insights to improve how the military selects individuals for specific medical tasks and environments, and how it designs training to boost performance across different scenarios. In funding terms, the opportunity was listed under CFDA 12.420 (military medical research and development-related), open eligibility (unrestricted), and offered multiple award instruments (cooperative agreement, grant, or procurement contract). The posted dates indicate it was created and posted on March 28, 2016, with an application closing date of August 29, 2016, and an award ceiling listed at $1,250,000.

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