Ongoing research is a vital component of the Rocky Mountain Regional Trauma Center, allowing Denver Health to provide the most advanced and highest quality trauma care to patients.

Denver Health’s trauma surgeons, in conjunction with colleagues from the University of Colorado School of Medicine, are continually researching predictors of multiple organ failure in critically injured trauma patients and subsequent outcomes.

Members of the trauma team are currently involved in numerous research studies including those involving blood substitutes, the use of bicycle helmets, emergency response times, alcohol use and others.  Research such as this helps to achieve some of the best patient outcomes in the state.

Denver Health’s trauma surgeons are internationally published. Ernest E. “Gene” Moore, M.D., was recently recognized by The Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection, and Critical Care as being the world’s most cited author.

Denver Health’s Surgery and Orthopaedic Research departments recently added a flow cytometer to the laboratory.  In one ongoing research study, it is being used to analyze changes in the surface antigens of the neutrophil following orthopaedic trauma.

Members of Denver Health’s Trauma Team are continuously involved in multiple research projects.  In 2005, Denver Health brought in nearly $50 million in research and grant funding.

The Trauma Surgeons at Denver Health have been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1988 to investigate the pathogenesis and develop therapy to prevent Postinjury Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and Multiple Organ Failure (MOF). In collaboration with Dr. Alden Harken at UCHSC, they are sponsored as a Program Center entitled "Trauma Prime Cells". The Trauma Surgeons at Denver Health have also conducted FDA Phase I, II, and III studies with a blood substitute entitled "PolyHeme". Collectively, the Department of Surgery at Denver Health Medical Center publishes more than 50 peer-reviewed manuscripts annually.

As the name implies, the Surgery/Trauma CRU specializes in conducting studies involving the prevention and management of the consequences of trauma, in all its phases and environments, including: transportation from the scene of injury, the Emergency Department, the Operating Room, the Post-Anesthesia Care Unit and Surgical Intensive Care Unit, as well as subsequent inpatient and outpatient hospital care. 

In this setting, indications for prophylactic or therapeutic intervention with investigational products (whether pharmaceutical, biologic or device) include but are not limited to: hemorrhagic shock, septic shock, hypothermia, anemia, hemostasis, ischemia, analgesia, inflammation, infection, healing (bone/wound), clotting disorders, post-operative bowel dysfunction, and organ failure.

Patients undergoing and/or recovering from emergent and elective surgery are routinely considered for inclusion in relevant clinical trials.

All trials are conducted under the supervision of Ernest E. Moore M.D., Chief of Surgery and Trauma Services.  Close cooperation between the Paramedic Division, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesiology and Surgery Departments ensures successful research collaboration.