Warfighter Care: CIMIT Soldier Medicine

ADDRESSING SOLDIER CARE, DISASTER RESPONSE AND
NATIONAL HEALTHCARE NEEDS

Having served as a battlefield surgeon during the Vietnam War, CIMIT Executive Director John A. Parrish is acutely aware of the needs of soldiers and their supportive medical units. Today CIMIT is supporting efforts to develop technology that can be brought to the front lines of military care — through research, collaboration and teamwork.

High technology devices and systems are enabling new approaches to characterize and manage acute care, rehabilitation, trauma and disease. By funding early-stage, high-risk ideas for patient care, CIMIT encourages its project teams to seek solutions that benefit soldiers, civilians and populations in austere environments.

In the early days, CIMIT gained a reputation for innovation through its Simulation and Clinical Systems Innovation initiatives. Since that time, CIMIT has become a national leader in new systems for patient safety, caregiver training, and systems designed to deliver care in the most appropriate and efficient setting. While the technical and medical practice skill sets for these improved processes apply equally to civilian and military medicine, CIMIT emphasizes the unique needs of the soldier.

CIMIT has a diverse and growing portfolio of "dual-use" projects that benefit soldiers as well as civilians.

CIMIT CIVILIAN AND MILITARY
DUAL-USE PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES:

» NeuroHealth Strategic Initiative
» Integrated Clinical Environments (ICE) Strategic Initiative

• Biodetection & Sepsis Control
• Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering
• Clinical Systems Innovation
• Image Guided Therapy
• Inhalation Technology
• Minimally Invasive Surgery & NOTES
• Simulation
• Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD)
• Trauma and Casualty Care
• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) & Neurotrauma

 

These “dual use” science programs and research projects are being developed with military forces in mind but will also be available to civilian healers as trauma (military and civilian) is the leading cause of death today among young adults aged 20-35.

 

Devices for Screening & Diagnostics

• Improved tools for triage
• Imaging devices for base-lining and classifying traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• High field MRI for differentiating TBI from PTSD
• Detection/characterization of infection
• Serum screens for TB, HIV, and other infectious disease
• Early detection of hemorrhage
• Identify post-acute patients at risk of heart attack/stroke
• Systems and monitoring devices to help manage large numbers of casualties

Therapy

• Treating the soldier patient at point of injury for abdominal hemorrhage
• Improving intravenous access for drug delivery
• Designing new systems to characterize and mitigate traumatic pain
• Predicting seizure onset in traumatized patients to initiate therapy
• Quantifying benefits of novel surgery (reduced infection rate, faster recovery)
• Localizing therapy in the brain non-invasively with focused ultrasound
• Exploring ways to mitigate TBI (laser stimulation, transcranial magnetics)
• Improving vaccines
• Moderating inflammatory response to traumatic injury (cooling and pharmacologic therapies)

Rehabilitation

• Introducing longitudinal imaging approaches to manage TBI care
• Using nerve function sensors to stage therapy
• Evaluating brain-body interface characterization for TBI, prosthetic therapies

Training and Improved Care Systems

• Realistic trauma simulators for medic and first responder training
• Systems for improved care safety (hand washing compliance)