Joint Base San Antonio - Fort Sam Houston –
The Joint Trauma System at the U.S. Army Institute of
Surgical Research at Fort Sam Houston was presented the inaugural Military
Health System Battlefield Innovation Award by Dr. Jonathan Woodson, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, at the 2015 Association of Military Surgeons of the United States
Annual Continuing Education Meeting held in San Antonio Dec. 3, 2015.
“The title of ‘MHS Chief of Innovation’ is a new role that
is arguably ambiguous and prone to misinterpretation. Have no doubt that
central to everything I intend to do in this position is to advocate for the
combat medic and remember our core mission in the military health system,” Dr.
Steve Steffensen, MHS chief of innovation, said in an email to the JTS
leadership.
“It is therefore with greatest respect that I have chosen to
recognize the Joint Trauma System for the first-ever MHS Battlefield Innovation
Award.”
Accepting the award was JTS director Navy Capt. (Dr.) Zsolt
Stockinger and several former JTS directors, as well as several JTS leaders.
“Five of seven JTS
directors were present to accept the award with me,” Stockinger said. “The
award proves that this is a team sport and no single individual built the
organization. I told the JTS staff that the award is like the moon rock at the
National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. – it doesn’t look like much,
but think of what it represents.”
The JTS was created in 2006 at the direction of the
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health
Affairs and the service surgeon general to improve trauma care for
combat wounded.
Since its inception, the JTS has collected data from more
than 130,000 combat casualty care records from Iraq and Afghanistan and created
39 clinical practice guidelines providing evidence-based best-practice
recommendations for trauma care.
In 2013, the JTS was designated as the Department of Defense
Center of Excellence for Trauma by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense.
Steffensen added that the JTS was founded on the basic
principles of four simple tenets – right patient, right place, right time and
right care – with the guiding vision that every Soldier, Sailor, Airman and
Marine injured on the battlefield will have the optimal chance of survival and
functional recovery.
“It is through the JTS and its history of leadership and
passionate commitment to combat care that we have seen the case fatality rates
for combat injury in Afghanistan and Iraq drop to less than half that of Vietnam and one-third that
of World War II,” Steffensen said. “There is no finer example that embodies the
mission of the Military Health System or better contributes to saving lives on
the battlefield than the Joint Trauma System and those who support it.”
AMSUS, the Society of
Federal Health Professionals, was organized in 1891 and chartered by Congress
in 1903 for military, federal and Veterans Administration healthcare
professionals and is dedicated to all aspects of Federal medicine –
professional, scientific, educational and administrative.