UCLA

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) remains a significant health condition that touches all populations and communities, with the current TBI Continuum of Care consisting of medical acute care, rehabilitation and community integration. In the past, TBI was seen as a one-time event, with the TBI survivor expected to re-integrate back into the community after a convalescence period. Now researchers understand that a TBI, whether mild or severe, can be a chronic condition, following a survivor throughout their lifetime. This concept places even more importance on the community integration sector of the TBI Continuum of Care. Unlike the medical and rehabilitation sectors, which have universally-applied standards of care, the community integration (CI) sector does not as yet have common standards by which to measure outcomes. This means organizations providing CI services can be very diverse and can run the gamut for quality of care.

This dissertation focuses on the creation of a list of proposed recommendations for community integration organizations supporting TBI survivors. The research includes interviewing of CI sites throughout California, as well as interviews of individuals throughout the TBI Continuum of Care. This list of proposed recommendation focuses on potential strategies that CI organizations can adopt to improve the quality and availability of services, continuously monitor patient outcome, and enhance organizational sustainability, thereby improving the quality of life for TBI survivors and their families in California.