Date: 2007-03-27
Speaker: GENE GREEN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

Mr. Speaker. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in support of H.R. 727. legislation to reauthorize the Trauma Systems -Planning and Development Act. This program. under the Public Health Service Act. was first authorized in 1990 to improve and coordinate trauma care in our country. Since then. this program has provided $30 million to States to establish statewide and regional trauma systems. Injury related to trauma is the leading cause of death for younger Americans. ages 1 through 44. Trauma also causes more than. 300.000 permanent disabilities each year. For seriously injured individuals. the first hour after an injury is when medical care is most effective in saving lives and function. This hour is also often referred to as the "golden hour." during which trauma and emergency systems must respond both quickly and efficiently. Thi6 golden hour is also the goal that our military has for getting medical attention to our soldiers injured on the battlefield. The military has an impressive. streamlined trauma system that my colleagues Dr. BURGESS. our ranking member at that time. Congressman DEAL from Georgia. and our late colleague Dr. Norwood from Georgia and I marveled at during our trip last summer to Iraq. where we toured the militarys trauma facilities in Balad. Unfortunately. the militarys trauma. system is not replicated in civilian health care. and too many Americans do not benefit from trauma systems that facilitate medical intervention during this critical time frame. While the death rate from trauma is 50 percent higher in rural areas than in urban locations. trauma affects each corner of this country. In fact. nearly 25 percent of all Americans sustain injuries each year that require medical attention. Yet without coordinated trauma systems and quick access to care. injuries are too often fatal. In Houston. we learned this lesson the hard way when the lack of trauma H3160 co coordination forced a young man to wait more than 4 hours to receive care after he was hit by a car on Halloween night in 2001. With serious head. chest and leg injuries. this patient was clearly medically unstable and should have received immediate care at one of Houstons two levelone trauma centers. But with the trauma centers increasingly on diversion. this young man was transported to Austin where he died the next day. It was clear that we needed better trauma systems in the Houston area. and we quickly learned that the problem was felt throughout our Nation. We also learned that the effective trauma systems would help prevent nearly 25.000 deaths each year. As a response. we developed this legislation to build on the programs initial success since 1990. and we authorized it through 2012. This bill includes changes to the program to ensure that scarce health care dollars go to the communities most in need. ensuring that Federal funds are utilized to strengthen trauma systems and improve communication and coordination among different trauma systems. It specifically ensures that grants go to States that coordinate planning for trauma systems with State disaster emergency planning and bioterrorism hospital preparedness planning. In addition. this legislation would require the Secretary to update the model plan for the designation of trauma centers and set triage. transfer. and transportation policies.. The legislation also reauthorizes the Residency Training Program iin Emergency Medicine in an effort to ensure an adequate level of ER physicians to treat patients in need of care from Americas trauma centers. I would like to thank Mr. BURGESS from Texas for his leadership on this legislation and for helping to craft the compromise before us today. I would also like to thank Chairman DINGELL and our Health Subcommittee Chairman PALLONE for their interest in this issue. We have been working on this bill for 5 years. Until now. this important issue failed to receive the attention it deserved. so I appreciate my chairman including this bill on our first markup in this Congress. I also appreciate the hard work that John Ford. William Garner and Pete Goodloe of the committee staff put in to guide this bill through the committee to ensure that we have a consensus product to approve today. and also my own staff who has worked on this for at least 3 years. 0l 2030 I also appreciate the support of the American College of Surgeons. the American Osteopathic Association. the American Academy of Pediatrics. the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. the American Trauma Society. the Coalition for American Trau-