This bill directs the Secretary of Defense to set up a pilot program called the "Warfighter Traumatic Brain Injury Diagnostics Project" to help test and move new traumatic brain injury (TBI) diagnostic tools toward use for members of the Armed Forces. The Secretary must start the pilot within 180 days of enactment and run activities through a program that ends on September 30, 2029. The pilot will assess whether the Department should support or buy diagnostic technologies that could be used during deployments, including in combat zones. It lists specific areas to study, such as whether a technology can tell mild TBI from moderate or severe TBI and how a technology works with other tools (for example, CT, MRI, blood biomarkers, electrophysiological measures, oculomotor tracking, and environmental sensors).
The pilot may fund research, development, testing, evaluation, and production work. It may also support manufacturing improvements and help move prototypes into production. The program will include research studies done with or advised by Department of Defense trauma and TBI experts, emergency medical technicians, service members who have had TBIs, and technology experts. The Secretary may give grants to eligible U.S.-organized entities and may prioritize entities with a record in TBI diagnostics, ties to the national technology and industrial base, or technologies that are modular. Grant money can be used to validate technologies, address production challenges, provide commercial technologies to military units for testing, and build relationships with nontraditional defense contractors.
The Secretary must submit a report to the congressional defense committees within 90 days after the pilot ends. The report must summarize results, say whether the Department should procure additional diagnostics beyond current screening tools used at the point of injury, and recommend steps (including any legislative actions) to promote useful diagnostics.
The bill authorizes $5,000,000 to be appropriated to the Secretary of Defense for each of fiscal years 2026, 2027, 2028, and 2029 to carry out the pilot. No publicly available information on additional costs, offsets, or total program cost beyond these authorizations.
No publicly available information.
No publicly available information.