Ultrasound Training
Bridging the Chasm: The Role of the SBIR Program Dr. Dan Katz, Dr. Eric Savitsky and Brian Bernstein describe the step by step process of the government’s Phase I, II and III SBIR program to develop a successful commercial product.
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his is the second installment in a three-part series that uses a case study to describe the introduction of disruptive innovation into medical education and training. This installment reports the process of successfully guiding a nascent educational technology from an idea into a successful commercial product. October 7, 2001 marked the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), followed by the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) on March 20, 2003. Thousands of devastating blast-related injuries arising from improvised-explosive devices (IEDs) were a signature injury pattern of both conflicts. The complex nature of blast-related injuries was unlike anything encountered to date by military care providers trained within United States medical centers. In an effort to track and analyze the high volume of casualties and complicated nature of injuries during combat operations, US military forces began in 2004 to develop and implement the Joint Theater Trauma System (JTTS) and Joint Theater Trauma Registry (JTTR). These measures were intended to “improve trauma care delivery and patient outcomes across the continuum of care utilizing continuous performance improvement and evidence-based medicine driven by the concurrent collection and analysis of data maintained in the Department of Defense Trauma Registry (USAISR 2014).” Their creation resulted in tremendous improvements in medical care and created unique opportunities to advance combat casualty and civilian medical care. In a seemingly unrelated event, SonoSim was the Phase III commercialization vehicle of an earlier government Small Business Innovative Research program (SBIR) that began in 2007 as a direct response to unmet medical training needs arising from OEF and OIF. Through the strength of the federal government’s SBIR program the Department of Defense was able to prompt 22
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solutions to improve combat casualty care and improve efficiency within the military health system. SonoSim was the end-result of a successful SBIR program that began with a Phase I award in 2007. Along the way, this effort culminated in providing thousands of military care providers the latest medical lessons learned in OEF and OIF in the form of a military textbook (digital and print-versions), training DVD, and a much-needed, groundbreaking ultrasound training solution for military and civilian health sectors.
SBIR Program Background The SBIR program was established through the Small Business Innovation Development Act in 1982 to award federal research grants to small businesses. The program originally had several objectives: (1) spurring technological innovation in the small business sector; (2) meeting the research and development needs of the federal government; and (3) commercializing federally funded investments (OSD 2014). SBIR program founder Roland Tibetts described the program as a method “to provide funding for some of the best early-stage innovation ideas - ideas that, however promising, are still too high risk
Doctors in military field hospitals use ultrasound for diagnosis and treatment. Image credit: Pelagique, LLC.