Center Capabilities & Research Methodologies

Through collaborative efforts, our clinical team validates new devices and procedures to provide earlier treatment to the soldiers injured on the battlefield as well as test procedures and devices proven to be effective on the battlefield in the emergency setting of the civilian population. At the same time significant effort is put forth to observe and evaluate treatment protocols and patient populations to identify important patterns or trends.

Goals:

• Assist with the translation of ideas from the basic science level to clinical studies
• Assist with the translation between civilian and military populations
• Evaluate and improve clinical practices
• Test/validate new medical interventions
• Implement new technologies to provide optimal trauma care and outcomes

Our approach to preparing research proposals is as follows:

• Identify a clinical problem
• Create data-driven questions
• Based on the questions, determine the best approach to providing the answer (utilizing basic science and clinical or both)
• Basic science research approach – helpful in evaluating the question through model systems that mimic the clinical problem
  • Model systems are done on a cellular level as well as animal level
  • Model systems look at TBI, shock and hemorrhagic shock
  • Mesenchymal Stem Cell research for TBI and hemostasis
• Clinical research approach – helpful in evaluating the question if it involves a large patient population
  • Examples include prospective, observational studies from trauma patients upon arrival to the ED
  • Questions to evaluate include: pre-hospital triage, blood transfusion practices, coagulopathy guidelines and utilization of clinical based algorithms
• Basic Science and Clinical Research approaches can interact and assist each other to provide answers to the proposed question
• Following completion of the studies, analysis is completed on data collected
• The analysis is reviewed and decisions are made to:
  • Propose changes to clinical care based on results
  • Pose additional questions leading to additional studies
  • Provide results from the civilian studies to the military for potential clinical use

Areas of Interest:

• Pre-hospital triage
• Earlier life saving interventions in the ED
• Administration of blood products
• Coagulopathy guidelines
• Utilization of clinical based algorithms
• Resuscitation computerized decision support
• Long-term outcomes
• Quality of life