To require the Secretary of Defense to establish a National Trauma Institute Research Program.

Summary: National Trauma Institute Research Program Act - Directs the Secretary of Defense to establish a National Trauma Institute Research Program at the National Trauma Institute as a military-civilian public-private partnership to nationally fund trauma research.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``National Trauma Institute Research 
Program Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Wars have always generated technological and medical 
        advances.
            (2) Trauma is the number one killer of the Nation's 
        fighting soldiers, having caused over 30,000 injuries and over 
        4,000 deaths in the Global War on Terror.
            (3) In the United States, civilian trauma is the leading 
        cause of death from ages 1 to 44 and is responsible for over 
        160,000 deaths annually.
            (4) Each year trauma accounts for 37 million emergency 
        department visits and 2.6 million hospital admissions.
            (5) Trauma is a disease affecting all ages of people, and 
        the impact of life years lost is 4 times greater than heart 
        disease or cancer.
            (6) Injuries in a single year will ultimately cost the 
        United States $406 billion, with $326 billion in lost 
        productivity and $80.2 billion in medical costs (representing 
        approximately 6 percent of total annual health expenditures).
            (7) Injury accounts for 4 of the top ten causes of death 
        and disability-adjusted life years lost worldwide.
            (8) While the mechanisms of injury are different, military 
        and civilian trauma casualties are treated similarly, thus 
        improvements gained by focused, relevant trauma research in 
        each group will benefit both.
            (9) Despite these alarming facts, within the context of 
        years of potential life lost, the National Institutes of Health 
        support ratio for HIV is $3.51, for cancer is $1.65, and for 
        trauma is $0.10 cents.
            (10) Despite a mandate to promote research directed toward 
        specific health issues relevant to the military forces, the 
        Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program within the 
        Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs has spent 
        less than a third of funding on trauma research.
            (11) The National Trauma Institute (NTI) in San Antonio, 
        Texas, is a not-for-profit research institute formed by 
        military-civilian collaboration between Wilford Hall Medical 
        Center, San Antonio, Texas; University Hospital; the University 
        of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, Texas; and Brooke 
        Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas. NTI can build on the 
        military-civilian collaboration to fill the gap in trauma 
        research by setting a comprehensive research agenda to award 
        grants to the best researchers in the country.
            (12) NTI, as a consortium of civilian and Department of 
        Defense centers, is the natural starting point to translate 
        battlefield innovations to civilians at home.
            (13) NTI, as a centralized institute to coordinate a 
        national trauma research agenda, will substantially reduce the 
        number of injuries and deaths to the Nation's soldiers on the 
        battlefield and civilians at home.

SEC. 3. ESTABLISHMENT.

    (a) Establishment.--The Secretary of Defense shall establish a 
National Trauma Institute Research Program at the National Trauma 
Institute as a military-civilian public-private partnership to 
nationally fund trauma research.
    (b) Purposes.--The purposes of the National Trauma Institute 
Research Program shall be--
            (1) to develop and implement revolutionary medical 
        technologies to improve injury prevention and diagnosis, 
        survival, and quality of life for victims of trauma and burn 
        injury;
            (2) to implement a national multidisciplinary, multi-center 
        collaborative research effort; and
            (3) to create and administer a competitive, peer-reviewed 
        trauma research grant program that supports research that 
        includes, at a minimum, the following:
                    (A) Injury prevention and education.
                    (B) Improved prehospital and inter-hospital triage.
                    (C) Resuscitation.
                    (D) Early, effective treatment of compressible and 
                non-compressible bleeding.
                    (E) Improved burn care.
                    (F) Head and spinal cord injury.
                    (G) Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
                    (H) Orthopedics.
                    (I) Improved intensive care unit treatment and 
                management.
                    (J) Enhanced rehabilitation and recovery.
                    (K) Trauma care systems.
                    (L) Outcomes.

SEC. 4. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.

     There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Defense 
$25,000,000 for the first fiscal year beginning after the date of the 
enactment of this Act for purposes of carrying out the activities of 
the National Trauma Institute Research Program as described in this 
Act. Such funds shall not be available for general administrative 
expenses of the Secretary of Defense.