Transforming Trauma Care

Each year, over 600,000 of the 3 million U.S. patients hospitalized for traumatic injuries develop PTSD or depression within a year post-injury. Despite the 2022 American College of Surgeons (ACS) mandate for routine mental health screening and treatment, many trauma centers struggle to implement effective programs due to a lack of clear implementation roadmaps and operational barriers. The Trauma Resilience and Recovery Program (TRRP), developed by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), addresses these gaps with a comprehensive, evidence-based intervention designed to meet the behavioral health needs of trauma patients. TRRP includes a web-based, HIPAA-compliant provider navigator platform that is cost-efficient and unique in its ability to facilitate improved screening accuracy at the bedside and efficient screening and referral post-discharge. The TRRP model and navigator platform have been used and sustained at MUSC since 2015 and have been adopted by over a dozen trauma centers. However, while adopters have noted several benefits of the platform, they emphasize two top-priority needs to facilitate adherence to ACS guidelines, ensure workload efficiencies that reduce provider burden, and minimize patient data capture errors: 1) integration of resources to facilitate screening and intervention for substance use disorders (SUD), and 2) the ability to read from and write to the electronic medical record (EMR). In this Phase I STTR, FRD Accel will partner with the MUSC team to enhance and de-risk an upgraded navigation platform-TRRP 2.0-to improve its scalability nationally in preparation for commercial launch. Our upgraded TRRP 2.0 platform will add features for integrated screening, intervention, and referral for SUD in addition to PTSD and depression. This will reduce provider burden and ensure compliance with ACS guidelines, promoting comprehensive care and optimizing patient outcomes. The specific aims for Phase I STTR are to 1) improve the TRRP platform by integrating new resources to facilitate the screening and referral of trauma patients with SUD and enabling communication with the Epic EMR (months 1-8), and 2) evaluate the clinical effectiveness of the TRRP 2.0 platform on post-discharge follow-up, behavioral health service utilization, and mental health outcomes among a sample of 300 adult trauma injury survivors (months 3-22). Successful completion of Phase I will validate TRRP 2.0's capacity to meet trauma centers' needs for integrated behavioral health services. The anticipated results will demonstrate the platform's ability to enhance patient care, streamline provider workflows, and ensure adherence to ACS standards. This will justify the transition to Phase II, where we will focus on broader dissemination, further development, and commercialization of the platform to maximize its impact across trauma centers nationwide.