The implementation of a massive, statewide public health initiative led by University of Arizona researchers and involving 21,000 prehospital care patients has doubled the survival rate of severe traumatic brain injury victims and tripled the survival rate among those who were intubated.
The Excellence in Prehospital Injury Care Project, or EPIC, is the first major prehospital interventional project to evaluate the impact of national prehospital traumatic brain injury, or TBI, treatment guidelines, which were developed after years of research but contradicted decades of anecdotal protocol.
"Science has finally caught up. We’re finding the right benchmarks to go after," said Sean Culliney, an EMS training coordinator at the Northwest Fire District in Tucson.