In 2017, the Secretary of Defense directed the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R) to establish and maintain DoD-wide retention medical standards. As a result, the Accession and Retention Medical Standards Working Group (ARMSWG) was formed.

In 2021 upon publication of DoD Instruction 6130.03 Volume 2, the Medical Standards Analytics and Research (MSAR) team mission was expanded to include assessment of military retention standards, establishing the RMSAR branch of MSAR. Our support to the ARMSWG includes:

• Mapping of existing medical codes to military retention standards, and assessment of those standards using the extensive and expanding MSAR data library

• Publication of annual reports and studies highlighting baseline metrics of service members evaluated under the retention medical standards, utilizing service-specific Physical Evaluation Board (PEB) data

• Facilitating DoD evaluation of Service Member ability to serve effectively without need of excessive treatment or accommodations that are not readily available in most service settings

Main Objective: To provide advanced analytics and epidemiologic research to support evidence-based retention medical standards for the ARMSWG.