The Joint Trauma System at the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research hosted staff members from the Office of Research Protections at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command to conduct a staff assistance visit Aug. 10-12.

The USAISR's JTS receives the majority of the requests for visits from DOD personnel but also receives requests from civilian academic institutions, international partners and other federal agencies.

According to JTS Deputy Director Mary Ann Spott, this visit will serve to broaden the JTS's ability to disseminate data from the registry's valuable and unique combat casualty care data set and will refine processes to ensure requests for data are handled in accordance with applicable Army, Defense Health Agency and federal regulations.

"JTS seeks to respond to requests in a manner to facilitate clinical investigation for those with a sincere interest in advancing combat casualty care," said Spott. "The goal of the collaboration is to have transparent standard processes which do not present unnecessary barriers to clinical investigators."

Spott added: "Many lessons are to be learned from the data maintained in the registry. JTS encourages clinical investigators who seek to improve combat casualty care and wishes to facilitate knowledge sharing. The yield of information to be gathered from the DoDTR will only occur when access to data in the DoDTR is made widely available. However, availability of registry data should be in line with DOD policy and regulation as we are custodians of this valuable national resource."