Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a field that is difficult to study. One of the major limitations to studying TBI is that there is no centralized database of knowledge that exists for physicians to reference. Each state healthcare system, and often, individual doctors and hospitals, take what approaches they believe work best, working through the darkness of a lack of common clarity. Centralizing information is a key to helping disseminate it, as efforts such as Wikipedia and JSTOR (an online archive of peer reviewed journals) have demonstrated.
Efforts are now being made to combat the lack of knowledge about traumatic brain injuries, such as common statistics, most frequent symptoms, recovery rates compared to various treatments, and so forth. One such effort is H.R. 2600, the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan Act.
H.R. 2600 was proposed in the House of Representatives last year, and seeks to appropriate $2.9 million in order to create a best-practices database for doctors to reference.
In short and simple terms, the database will be a powerful reference tool that doctors can consult to see what treatments have worked the best for various cases of TBI in the past, allowing them to make more consistent judgment calls. This will allow for more effective scientific analysis and meta-analysis, potentially leading to further advances in effective treatments.
Our ability to deal with dangers such as TBI relies on doctors having current information. Up until recently, for example, sports players were often sent back onto the field after receiving concussions, frequently during the same game in which they had the initial injury. This happened for many years, despite evidence already existing that repeated brain injuries are more likely to result in severe, long term damage to the brain and quality of life. Creating a centralized best-practices database such as the one proposed by H.R. 2600 is a valuable first step in preventing this sort of mistake from happening again.
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