The Trauma Continuum-of-Care Quality Forum Integration Committee System-Wide Video Teleconference

Abstract

The lessons learned in the care of combat casualties throughout time have been vitally important to the improvement of military medicine. However, often the lessons learned were essentially personal, because the ability to transmit those lessons to other medical personnel was not systematized and organized. In past wars, the transmission of those lessons to other care providers was difficult and often long after the fact. Consultant visits were made and War Medicine conferences were held, but policy changes and actual changes in the mechanisms to provide care often lagged. Lessons learned often were not widely spread until years later. New capabilities in medical communications have permitted the development of real-time casualty care information exchange and rapid policy decision-making. This article describes one such effort.