Subject: Trauma Systems and Regionalization of Emergency Care
Reauthorization Act, H.R. 648
Dear Representatives Burgess and Green:
On behalf of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and Congress of
Neurological Surgeons (CNS), we would like to thank you for introducing the “Trauma Systems and
Regionalization of Emergency Care Reauthorization Act” (H.R. 648), and are pleased to offer our
strong support of this important legislation.
As you are aware, this bill would reauthorize crucial programs that provide grants to states for
planning, implementing, and developing trauma care systems, and establish pilot projects to
design, implement, and evaluate innovative models of emergency care systems. We sincerely
appreciate your continued leadership in recognizing the importance of these systems of care in
saving lives and offer our assistance to help advance this legislation.
Based on recommendations issued by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in its groundbreaking report
in June 2006, “Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System,” these grant
programs address the current tragic situation that faces injured and ill Americans across the
country. Among other things, the report found that hospital emergency departments and trauma
centers across the country are severely overcrowded, emergency care is highly fractured, and
critical surgical specialists are often unavailable to provide emergency and trauma care.
To alleviate this situation, the IOM called for a complete overhaul of our nation’s emergency and
trauma care by creating a coordinated and regionalized system of care modeled after the Trauma
Systems program. According to the report, the “objective of regionalization is to improve patient
outcomes by directing patients to facilities with optimal capabilities of any given type of illness or
injury.” Furthermore, the report states, “Trauma systems provide a valuable model for how such
coordination could and should operate.” Your bill addresses these problems and is a crucial step in
ensuring that Americans receive the emergency and trauma care they expect and deserve.
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