Epidemiologists estimate that 1,000 people die every week from traumatic brain injuries in the United States. But if you suffer a severe brain injury in Arizona, the National Institutes of Health say you will likely receive the best emergency services treatment available in the country. The National Institutes of Health chose Arizona as the only state to evaluate the national standards for prehospital emergency care of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Because it has adopted the Excellence in Prehospital Injury Care (EPIC) project, AZ has trained nearly 100 fire departments and ground/air ambulance companies in the national standards, covering more than 80 percent of the population.
Those agencies send treatment information to the Arizona Department of Health Services and The University of Arizona College of Medicine for tracking and evaluation. The EPIC partnership across the state is allowing the implementation and evaluation of state-of-the-art treatment at the scene of an accident and is tracking how EMS care impacts the final outcome of patients, said Dr. Daniel Spaite, Professor of Emergency Medicine at The University of Arizona College of Medicine. We know that treatment decisions immediately after a severe brain injury are critical. If you don’t live in AZ, then contact your state government’s Department of Health Services to request that it join the same EPIC partnership.
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