The ACS has long advocated for the creation of a US National Trauma System to improve quality of care, decrease inequities, and save lives as one of its top legislative priorities, part of which involves the creation of a trauma research plan.
In response to the 2016 report from the National Academies on the need for a National Trauma System, a National Trauma Research Action Plan (NTRAP) has been developed with grant support from the US Department of Defense. This project was executed by the Coalition for National Trauma Research (CNTR)—a research coordinating center of which the ACS Committee on Trauma is a core member—and has three specific aims:
- AIM 1 – Perform a gap analysis of military and civilian trauma research to identify priorities across the continuum of care
- AIM 2 – Define optimal metrics to assess long-term functional outcomes in injured patients following hospital discharge
- AIM 3 – Identify trauma research regulatory barriers, develop best practices for investigators, and collaborate with federal entities to define optimal endpoints for clinical trauma research
To accomplish Aim 1, 11 expert panels were convened and utilized a Delphi methodology to identify research gaps and establish priorities for future investigation in 11 topic areas: : acute resuscitation, initial patient evaluation and imaging; burns and reconstructive surgery; geriatric trauma; injury prevention; long-term outcomes and rehabilitation; neurotrauma and spinal cord injury; orthopedic trauma; pediatric trauma; post-admission critical care; prehospital and mass casualty triage and management; and trauma systems and informatics.
All research questions that reached consensus were then tagged using a taxonomy of 118 research concepts to support subsequent analysis. The research concepts fall into several categories, including population, phase of care, global injury pattern, and more.
Because the questions generated within all the panels were similarly tagged, an investigator may query the data across panels to find trends or to discover priorities that cross disciplinary boundaries.
Primary manuscripts reporting the results of the NTRAP Delphi surveys are published in the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, and have been gathered into a digital collection. The data are now available to investigators for secondary analysis. Researchers can request data from one, several, or all panels, and analyses can be conducted within or across panels using the taxonomy tags.
To submit a data request, complete the online data access form. Data access requests are considered each month by the NTRAP Publications Committee.
For further Information about the NTRAP project and deliverables from all the Aims, visit the CNTR website.
NTRAP Panel Leaders are discussing the main results of their Delphi Surveys and offering thoughts on next steps and what they see as potential additional inquiries that might be made of the data in a series of webinars.
A recording of the first webinar, led by Eileen Bulger, MD, FACS, Medical Director of ACS Trauma Programs is now available – watch it today. Additional webinars will be held in the coming months.
