A trauma system is, “…an organized, inclusive approach to facilitating and coordinating a multidisciplinary system response to severely injured patients.”[14] Coordination across prehospital entities (e.g., EMS) and hospitals signal an effective trauma system, where patients can get the right level of care they need. Access to trauma care in the United States is inconsistent. For example, 1 in 3 Americans live in a region with incomplete trauma care,[15] and 30 million Americans live over 60 minutes from a trauma care center.[16]

The Trauma Care Readiness and Coordination Program supports ASPR’s goal of strengthening state and local preparedness by funding and supporting efforts to improve coordination across EMS, pre-hospital providers, and hospitals.[17] Through this program, ASPR will help recipients test scalable models that improve trauma system readiness and patient access to the right level of care, ultimately improving health outcomes and saving lives.