The “top 10” Research and Development Priorities for Battlefield Surgical Care: Results From the Committee on Surgical Combat Casualty Care Research gap Analysis

BACKGROUND The US Military has achieved the highest casualty survival rates in its history. However, there remain multiple areas in combat trauma that present challenges to the delivery of high quality and effective trauma care. Previous work has identified research priorities for pre-hospital care, but there has been no similar analysis for forward surgical care. METHODS A list of critical “focus areas” was developed by the Committee on Surgical Combat Casualty Care (CoSCCC). Individual topics were solicited and mapped to appropriate focus areas by group consensus and review of EAST and JTS guidelines. A web-based survey was distributed to the CoSCCC and the military committees of EAST and AAST. Topics were rated on a Likert scale from 1 (low) to 10 (high priority). Descriptives, univariate statistics, and inter-rater correlation analysis was performed. RESULTS 13 research focus areas were identified (8 clinical and 5 adjunctive categories). Ninety individual topics were solicited. The survey received 64 responses. The majority of respondents were military (90%) versus civilians (10%). There was moderate to high agreement (inter-rater correlation coefficient=0.93, p

from Emergency Medicine via xlomafota13 on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2D2yCwe