The Athletic Health Care and Training Program. A comprehensive approach to the prevention and management of athletic injuries in high schools.

The Athletic Health Care and Training Program was developed to meet the educational, organizational and record-keeping needs of the interscholastic athletic program of the Seattle Public Schools. The program components were the education of coaches, school nurses and student trainers; development of a centralized training room; implementation of written procedures, and establishment of a record-keeping system. At the end of the three-year study period, schools involved in the program were better prepared to handle emergencies than were control schools. Schools involved in the program were found to have an injury-recognition rate comparable to that previously reported for high schools that had athletic trainers, a rate substantially higher than that in the control schools. The experimental schools were judged to have managed these injuries satisfactorily 95% of the time, compared with a satisfactory management rate of 14% for the control schools.