In 2017 the Upstate Healthcare Coalition presented a project to provide stop the bleed kits to all regional schools in the Upstate as part of the Hospital Preparedness Program (HPP) grant funding, through the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). DHEC works with the coalitions to administer this grant.

The Lowcountry, Midlands and Pee Dee Healthcare coalitions decided to implement this project in their regions as well. Spartanburg Regional Health, MUSC, Palmetto Health and Grand Strand Health are partnering with the HPP Health Care Coalitions to help facilitate this project.

The state of South Carolina and the Regional Healthcare Coalitions have received almost $1.06 million in federal grant funding. South Carolina is scheduled to receive more than 18,000 “Stop the Bleed” kits that will be evenly distributed among the four Public Health Preparedness Regions’ school districts.

Public school districts will receive “Stop the Bleed” training and tourniquet kits at no cost to the districts. The tourniquet kits will contain supplies and cuff-like devices that can stop severe traumatic bleeding during an emergency on the school campus or during a school event, enabling lay-people to intervene and potentially save lives in the event of a life-threatening injury. Each district will be allocated tourniquets based on population and will distribute them to the schools.

The model for training and distribution would be to have lead nurses in all participating districts attend train-the-trainer educational sessions, where they would obtain certificates to verify their training status upon completion. Once the lead nurses are trained, a supply of kits will be delivered to their offices for distribution at the district’s discretion (factors include, but are not limited to, the number of schools, school size and the number of buildings, and student volume).

There will be at least one training held in every region. District school nurses would be responsible for training the other nurses in their district.