HIPRC Overview

	HIPRC Overview Overview Injury Prevention at Work Acute Care Biomechanics Epidemiology Rehabilitation Collaborative Efforts

As providers of the highest level of emergency medical care for one-quarter of the land mass of the United States, physicians in the Northwest Regional Trauma Center at Harborview Medical Center have seen it all. And what they see has made them wonder, in frustration, why so many lives are lost or ruined that should not be at risk at all. Why so many children with brain injuries from bicycle crashes, when helmets can protect their heads? Why so many infants injured from falls or burns while they scoot around in baby walkers that offer more mobility than babies can handle? Why so many accidental shootings when guns and ammunition can be locked safely out of reach?

These questions - and the accompanying frustration - prompted the founding of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC) in 1985. No one knows better than trauma surgeons and other clinicians at Harborview that injuries hospitalize one in three Americans every year. Their firsthand experience in dealing with life-threatening injuries gives them unique insight into the causes of and possible solutions for the massive problem of injury.

It is this expertise that drives the Center, one of 10 injury-control centers supported by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the country. Its 40 full- time staff are devoted to research, education and prevention programs aimed at diminishing the personal impact of trauma and broadening the effectiveness of injury prevention and trauma treatment programs regionally and nationwide.

The targets of these programs are the groups at greatest risk of injury: children, the elderly, the poor, people of color, and residents of rural areas. The HIPRC attempts to reduce the rates of injury and death among these groups from unintentional events, such as car crashes and drownings, and from such purposeful acts as suicide and murder. The HIPRC work spans the continuum of medical care, from epidemiological research to determine injury causes, to acute care of trauma patients in the emergency department, to rehabilitation in the hospital and home, to proactive public-education campaigns on prevention strategies and guidelines. The Center is divided into six sections, each devoted to an injury-control specialty, to more effectively pursue the following goals:

• Track the type, causes, treatment and consequences of injuries;
• Use epidemiological tools to identify risk factors for injury;

• Develop and evaluate new injury-prevention programs, using behavior change, community education, government action, and product- environment modification;
• Use the principles of biomechanics to study injury causes and treatment;
• Develop more effective ways to resuscitate and treat injury victims;
• Improve rehabilitation strategies by identifying injury-related disability and long-term effects;
• Train new investigators in the field of injury research;
• Educate health professionals, policy makers, and the public about trauma’s magnitude, costs, and prevention.

This ambitious agenda lends itself to a multidisciplinary approach that gives strength and depth to the Center’s work. The HIPRC is a collaborative effort between Harborview Medical Center and the University of Washington Schools of Medicine and of Public Health and Community Medicine. This framework facilitates a rich collaboration among staff, faculty, clinicians, graduate students and fellows, and the community. The resulting array of contributing disciplines includes behavioral sciences, biostatistics, criminology, engineering, family medicine, health economics, neurological surgery, nursing, occupational medicine, orthopedics, pathology, pediatrics, psychology, psychiatry and social work, among others.

In addition to academic and clinical specialties, the HIPRC has developed many mutually beneficial community ties. Collaboration with Group Health Cooperative (GHC) of Puget Sound, a 450,000-member health maintenance organization in Washington state, has provided the important ability to focus on whole populations for studies on such topics as bicycle helmets, older drivers, and domestic violence. Links to community groups, law enforcement, government agencies, medical organizations, and recreational interests have enhanced the Center’s ability to transform its information and ideas into community programs and binding policies. The phenomenal success of the Washington Children’s Bicycle Helmet Campaign, an international model of such efforts, demonstrates the value of a multidisciplinary, inclusive approach in injury prevention programs.

As a result of the HIPRC goal to provide useful injury-prevention information to the people who would most benefit, the Center has become a sought-after resource for information and expertise for government, health professionals, the media, and the public. The number of requests for research results, public education materials, and technical advice and assistance continues to grow. For example, when HIPRC warnings about the dangers of baby walkers were included in a promotion by the Consumer Federation of America, more than 4,000 requests for information resulted. Half of the country’s state education departments offer their elementary schools a pedestrian-safety program developed by the HIPRC.

The importance of injury is often overlooked or underestimated, but most importantly, so are the steps people can take to prevent it. The Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center has made great strides in the past 15 years to correct this misperception, and wants to share its expertise with you to further that goal.

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