CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a previous story.
University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center has been selected as one of 25 trauma centers in the United States to receive a Military Civilian Partnership for Trauma Readiness Grant. The grant allows trauma centers to help military casualty care providers keep their skills sharp during non-war times.
In an effort to ensure optimal readiness and prevent clinical and surgical teams from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines from losing their skills when not deployed in combat zones, Congress authorized funding for a civilian-military partnership called Mission Zero. Mission Zero is deployed through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and aims to "improve the nation’s response to public health crises while also helping U.S. combat casualty care providers maintain their expertise in treating severely injured trauma patients.
“We are honored to serve in this vital role of helping to support our U.S. military’s readiness to care for our soldiers,” UH Chief Executive Officer Cliff A. Megerian, MD, FACS, Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair said in a release. “UH has a strong heritage of supporting the U.S. military dating back to World War I when UH sent physicians and nurses to care for Allied soldiers wounded in Europe and to establish ‘Base Hospitals.’
“This funding will enhance our caregivers’ abilities to continue to save lives through additional staffing support in our Level 1 trauma center, while at the same time promote trauma training for our military health care personnel.”
Added Jeffrey D. Kerby, MD, PhD, FACS, chair of the American College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma: “We congratulate University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center on receiving this important Mission Zero funding. These funds are critical to help improve the collaboration between military and civilian surgeons across our country and this ultimately benefits trauma patients. We have been strong supporters of Mission Zero funding and are encouraged by the collaboration it fosters among the military and civilian surgical sectors.”
According to Glen Tinkoff, MD, System Chief, Trauma and Acute Care Surgery at UH, the new grant will allow and support the addition of a program coordinator, who will work with the four branches of the military to enhance current programming.UH currently has a Hospital Corpsman Trauma Training program established with the U.S. Navy.
“The program, established in 2019, has seven-week iterations and we host six classes a year in which the Naval Corpsman integrate into our trauma team and obtain real world causality care in our adult emergency department, trauma surgical ICU, operating room and well as through a wound care rotation,” said Dr. Tinkoff. “We are one of four clinical sites in the country that hosts this program and the only one in Ohio.”