Advancing Combat Casualty Care Through Innovation and Research

The Research for Combat Casualty Care Operations Network (REC³ON), based at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington, leverages extensive expertise and resources to advance combat casualty care, supporting research in hemorrhage control, battlefield resuscitation, and innovative treatment technologies. Housed within the Department of Surgery, the team is comprised of active duty, reservists, and staff surgeons with varying surgical specialties, including trauma, critical care, bariatrics, cardiothoracic, and general surgery.

Mission

Madigan REC³ON’s mission is to improve combat casualty care through innovative research, resident development, and industry collaboration, ultimately improving the health of service members.

Impact 

The REC³ON team offers Madigan General Surgery Residents research opportunities to hone surgical techniques in a non-clinical setting, collaborate colleagues and scientists, and gain experience in military medical research. The team’s efforts have built a strong research portfolio focused on advancing combat casualty care, securing over $5 million in funding in the last five years. This work has led to numerous publications and presentations at key military and civilian medical conferences. The team also collaborates with industry partners on developing and testing new medical devices and technologies. REC³ON’s principal investigators are experienced in treating patients in deployed settings across all levels of care and are dedicated to the health of service members and their families.

The Geneva Advantage

The REC³ON program is supported by Geneva, which provides essential research and operational expertise to drive its success, from providing a dedicated portfolio manager to post-award management and coordination. Geneva research personnel will work on-site under the direction of the Principal Investigator to conduct their research, ensuring that all proposed objectives are met successfully.

PERFORMANCE CAPABILITIES

• Subject matter expertise related to trauma, critical care, deployed medicine, surgical procedures, and general surgery QI/PI.
• Novel or alternative use device evaluation and refinement (verbal, survey, or written feedback).
• Facilitating field testing and participant-based user feedback of devices by Physicians, Nurses, and Army Medics/Navy Corpsmen.
• In-vivo and Ex-vivo model development.
• Feasibility testing.
• Management of trauma-related medical databases (identified and de-identified).
• Expertise in developing and maintaining IRB- and IACUC-approved research protocols (20+ currently approved).

Facility Resources

• Madigan’s Department of Clinical Investigation
  •  DCI’s three main lines of support include Military Medical Research, Graduate Medical Education, and Research Regulatory Oversight. DCI enables scholarly activities of investigators at Madigan Army Medical Center and Medical Readiness Command, Pacific by coordinating efforts among its various expert research services available to all staff and learners.
• Madigan’s Biomedical Laboratory Research Service (BLRSR)
• Madigan’s Laboratory Animal Resources Service (LARS)

Madigan REC³ON Alumni