The U.S. military has completely transformed trauma care over the past 17 years, and that success offers lessons for civilian medicine.
In the civilian world, it takes an average of 17 years for a new discovery to change medical practice, but the military has developed or significantly expanded more than 27 major innovations, such as redesigned tourniquets and new transport procedures, in about a decade. As a result, the death rate from battlefield wounds has decreased by half.
Reference
Kellermann A et al. How the US military reinvented trauma care and what this means for US medicine. Health Aff. 2018 Jul 3. doi: 10.1377/hblog20180628.431867.
