Center for Surgery and Public Health

FORTE | Redefining Trauma Recovery

Overview

Every year more than three million people are hospitalized from traumatic injuries in the U.S. While 96% of trauma patients survive, many suffer long-term consequences as a result of their injuries. Currently, there is no routine collection of long-term outcomes after injury in the U.S.

In an effort to understand what happens to trauma patients after discharge, and to improve their outcomes in the long-term, the Functional Outcomes and Recovery after Trauma Emergencies (FORTE) project was created in 2015The FORTE project is a multi-institutional research collaboration that collects, analyzes, and interprets long-term patient-centered outcomes after traumatic injury in the U.S.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Co-Investigator: Juan Herrera-Escobar (jherreraescobar@bwh.harvard.edu)

Transform the collection, analysis and interpretation of long-term patient-centered outcomes after traumatic injury through research that informs policy and program development in the United States.

Create knowledge. Develop new measurement tools and techniques for routine collection of long-term patient-centered data

Disseminate knowledge. Demonstrate the value of long-term patient-centered data in trauma and advocate for their inclusion in national trauma registries

Transform practice. Identify best practices to improve the efficiency and quality of trauma care and mitigate disparities in long-term outcomes

Collaborate. Build partnerships at the local, national and international levels to achieve our mission

A Patient-Centered Approach

The FORTE team has developed a five-step approach to realize their goals:

  1. Contact trauma survivors at 6- and 12-months post-injury to collect long-term outcomes

  2. Merge patients’ interview data with institutional trauma registry data among other data sources to build a comprehensive long-term outcomes trauma registry

  3. Design research studies aligned with priority areas

  4. Analyze and interpret long-term trauma outcomes data

  5. Disseminate knowledge through publications and presentations at the local, national, and international level

The Essentiality of Pursuing Long-Term Outcomes

Long-term outcomes data in trauma will affect care on multiple levels: