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Try deciphering TRAC2ES

  • Published
  • By Bob Fehringer
  • U.S. Transportation Command Public Affairs
SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. --  One of this week's acronyms is perhaps the wackiest yet. With this little beauty we have managed to combine the alphabet and algebra or numerology or something. Don't run off just yet, give it a chance, and try to pronounce this gem--TRAC2ES. 

No, it's not track-tooze or track-too-ess. It's really quite simple. The general consensus around the TRANSCOM building is that it's pronounced tray-sez. That's with a silent "2." Huh? Don't worry about it, for in the wonderful world of "acronymia" stuff can really be made up. This proves it. 

It's because some people remember there was a TRACES before this one, making this TRACES, TRACES 2, but that would be too easy and not confusing at all, unlike this sentence. No one we talked with could explain the juxtaposition of the "2." Please refer to the above paragraph for the making stuff up bit. 

According to a well-known USTRANSCOM contractor, retired Air Force Col. Paul McVickar, who has been around for however the preferred way is to denote long periods of modern -- or ancient - historical time, "Sometimes you don't always want to know why." 

Any way chosen to pronounce or explain it, TRAC2ES is the single global patient movement automated information system (AIS) for the Department of Defense. It achieved initial operational capability in July 2001. The system is deployed to all patient movement requirements centers, including the USTRANSCOM Global Patient Movement Requirements Center and more than 300 joint medical treatment facilities worldwide. 

TRAC2ES provides a single web-based system for peacetime, contingency and wartime operations. It is the single interface for all phases of patient movement from the initial movement request through arrival of a patient at a required medical treatment facility. It matches the patient to the optimal bed destination via the most expeditious transport, while providing 100 percent in-transit visibility.