1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Battlefield Excellence through Superior Training Practices Act or the BEST Practices Act . 2. Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) The Department of Defense has made impressive strides in the development and use of methods of medical training and troop protection, such as the use of tourniquets and improvements in body armor, that have led to decreased battlefield fatalities. (2) The Department of Defense uses more than 8,500 live animals each year to train physicians, medics, corpsmen, and other personnel methods of responding to severe battlefield injuries. (3) The civilian sector has almost exclusively phased in the use of superior human-based training methods for numerous medical procedures currently taught in military courses using animals. (4) Human-based medical training methods such as simulators replicate human anatomy and can allow for repetitive practice and data collection. (5) According to scientific, peer-reviewed literature, medical simulation increases patient safety and decreases errors by healthcare providers. (6) The Army Research, Development and Engineering Command and other entities of the Department of Defense have taken significant steps to develop methods to replace live animal-based training. (7) According to the report by the Department of Defense titled Final Report on the use of Live Animals in Medical Education and Training Joint Analysis Team , published on July 12, 2009— (A) validated, high-fidelity simulators were to have been available for nearly every high-volume or high-value battlefield medical procedure by the end of 2011, and many were available as of 2009