The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network or CIREN links seven trauma centers from around the country together with engineersto study the cause, kinematics, and results of real world crashes. Each trauma center has a multidisciplinary team of physicians, medical researchers,safety engineers, crash reconstructionist, public safety professions, and others who review the crash and the patients. The network includes trauma centers in San Diego, Seattle, Newark, Baltimore, Miami, Washingtonand Ann Arbor. General Motors funds three of these centers. A high-speed computernetwork will soon link the sevencenters. This stateof the art teleconferencingsystemwill allow on-line multidisciplinary analysesof crashesto be performed by personnel from the trauma centers, manufacturersand governmentagencies.
The first national conference was held last October in Ann Arbor. This researchwill hopefully aid the auto industry to continuously design safer cars. It is already helping the medical community, doctors and EmergencyMedical Servicespersonnel,to develop new diagnosticand treatmenttools.