Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Standards of Care Directorate

Mission:

To develop state of the science clinical standards to maximize recovery and functioning and to provide guidance and support in the implementation of clinical tools for the benefit of all those who sustain traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in the service of our country.

Director:

USPHS Cmdr. Michael Handrigan

Overview:

The Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Standards of Care Directorate develops clear and concise TBI clinical standards of care including clinical tools, algorithms for care, identification of best practices and clinical practice guidelines to help optimize care. The directorate also disseminates clinical standards of care in collaboration with a number of other directorates and develops comprehensive and universal clinical practice guidelines for use by providers in the field.

In addition, the directorate identifies and makes available all relevant TBI clinical tools in a straightforward manner for use by providers in the field and collaborates with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense evidence-based working groups to finalize guidelines for care and ensure wide dissemination and usage.

Goals and Objectives:

The overarching goal for the directorate is to create guidelines that will inform a standard of care for TBI patients across the continuum of severity and in each practice environment.

Functional Areas:

The functional organization of the directorate is as follows:

• Planning: An interdisciplinary team works to gather and assess potential best practices currently available within the Military Health System (MHS). After completion of a scientific review, best practices can be prioritized to provide clear direction to the MHS to ensure state of science clinical care.
• Collaboration: Advise Health Affairs on all future iterations of the best practices. Coordination between this directorate and the military services will ensure that best practices are disseminated and educational strategies utilized to ensure usage of best practices.
• Dissemination and Implementation: Once best practices have been established and refined, they will be distributed to the MHS. This directorate will incorporate multiple modalities of training to ensure proper understanding and utilization of these guidelines.
• Evaluation: An interdisciplinary team will conduct site visits to help provide clinical guidance to treating TBI teams throughout the MHS. The team will identify outcome measures, track patient outcomes, and assess compliance with the standards. This information will then be utilized to further improve all TBI clinical standards with the ultimate goal of providing excellent clinical TBI care.