PROLONGED FIELD CARE
Our Prolonged Field Care initiative creates and tests effective, transportable, and easy-to-use interventions that aid Warfighter brain health in austere environments. Resources in these environments are scarce and timing for medical evacuation is severely delayed (e.g. up to 72 hours after injury). Acute neurocritical care in these environments is often performed by non-physician medical personnel.
In collaboration with experts from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory we are developing two devices that can provide field-based diagnosis and care of traumatic epidural or subdural hemorrhage in austere environments. The first device uses infrared technology to detect the hemorrhage while the second provides safe and sterile intracranial access. When used together, these devices can help treat and manage an injury that is frequently life-threatening when it occurs in the field.