At MTEC 2026, Gallatin Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Brian Ballard joined the AI/ML in Healthcare panel to talk about where decision support technology can create real value in military medicine.
His core point: the medical supply chain is not linear. It is global, fractured, and multidirectional, feeding patients, providers, and endpoints across every echelon of the battlespace while simultaneously reaching back through the defense industrial base, civilian hospital systems, and pharmaceutical networks. Planning for it as though it flows in one direction misses most of the problem.
Brian outlined three areas where decision support can make an immediate difference. Prediction: anticipating what medical supplies, blood products, and clinical capacity will be needed, where, and when. Tracking: maintaining visibility into patients, equipment, and casualty status as conditions change. Orchestration: helping planners evaluate distribution and patient movement options across strategic, operational, and tactical levels, while keeping humans in control of the decisions that matter.
This is the problem set Gallatin's Navigator capability is built to support. Not to replace the planner or the logistician, but to help commanders and sustainment teams connect fragmented data, evaluate options faster, and coordinate resources closer to the point of need.
Health service support, Class VIII, blood logistics, patient movement, and medical equipment availability are not separate problems. They are connected sustainment decisions. Medical logistics belongs in the center of the sustainment conversation, and that is where Gallatin is focused.
#MedicalLogistics #MilitaryMedicine #DefenseSustainment #MedicalInnovation