WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, introduced legislation this week that would provide grants to civilian hospitals that hire active duty military personnel to improve trauma response.

Specifically, the MISSION ZERO Act, S.3407, would assign Department of Defense (DoD) trauma surgeons to civilian trauma centers, helping to fill a gap in care recently examined by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. It will also address variations in care methods that exist while providing military surgeons with additional training.

“Our service men and women bring unique and valuable skills and training to the medical field, whether it’s operating in high-pressure situations or having a can-do attitude that comes with serving in uniform,” said Senator Isakson. “In addition, acute care at trauma centers nationwide will greatly benefit from increased access to highly qualified medical professionals. Integrating our nation’s best trauma centers with military trauma providers will ultimately have the greatest benefit to the American people.”

“This collaboration is a win-win no matter which way you look at it,” said Dr. Peter Rhee, chief of acute care surgery and medical director of Grady Hospital’s Marcus Trauma Center. “It makes sense in every way, and it helps our military and our country. Grady Memorial Hospital is one of the nation’s busiest trauma centers, and we have the means to make this work right.”

Currently, trauma care in the United States is a patchwork of regional systems and incomplete data registries. Mortality and disability in traumatic injury can be greatly reduced through integrated, permanent joint civilian-and-military trauma system training platforms that would help create and sustain an expert trauma workforce between periods of active combat. 

The MISSION ZERO Act is endorsed by the American Congress of Neurological Surgeons, Trauma Care Association of America, American College of Emergency Physicians and American College of Surgeons.

This bill would create two grant programs:

• The Military Trauma Team Placement Program will allow the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to as many as 20 high acuity trauma centers to enable military trauma teams to provide full-time trauma care. Recipients of these grants must allow providers of military trauma care to be deployed by DoD for military operations, training, or in response to a mass casualty incident.
• The second program, the Military Trauma Care Provider Placement Program, will allow the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) in consultation with DoD to award grants to trauma centers so they can train and incorporate military trauma care providers into the centers. Recipients of grants under this program must also allow providers to be deployed by DoD for military operations, training, or in response to a mass casualty incident.

In addition to Isakson, the legislation was introduced by U.S. Senators Mark Kirk, D-Ill., and John Cornyn, R-Texas. Companion legislation was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Michael C. Burgess, M.D., R-Texas, Kathy Castor, D-Fla., Gene Green, D-Texas, and Richard Hudson, R-N.C.

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The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is chaired by U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., in the 114th Congress. Isakson is a veteran himself – having served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966-1972 – and has been a member of the Senate VA Committee since he joined the Senate in 2005. Isakson’s home state of Georgia is home to more than a dozen military installations representing each branch of the military as well as more than 750,000 veterans.