Subscribers will receive the newest issue of Trauma MedEd by tomorrow night. So this is your last chance to get on the subscriber list so you don’t have to wait until mid-September.
And the topic this month is…
Field amputation. Topics discussed include:
Trauma training during general surgery residency has changed dramatically over the past two decades. Although we like to blame the 80-hour work week rule on everything, there are other factors that may be at play. Increasing use of nonoperative management, availability and increasing scope of interventional radiologists, and the increasing number of surgical subspecialists are certainly significant.
The surgical group at LAC+USC looked at changes in operative caseloads, type of surgery performed, and the impact that concurrent subspecialty training has had on trauma operative volumes. The authors reviewed 16 years of ACGME data on resident surgical procedures in various body regions by year of training. They specifically looked at the impact of implementation of the 80-hour work week.
Here are the factoids:
Bottom line: Well, it was a catchy title, at least. Or is it a promotion for trauma fellowships? I hope the authors have some really good statistics to help this paper out. You may not be able to read the table above well, but the differences between pre-80 hour and post-80 hour are not that impressive, and the SD or SEM (can’t tell what they are) are uncommonly narrow, which amplifies the p values. And other than the number of laparotomies going up, the other numbers looked fairly constant. I look forward to the presentation and critique of this paper at the meeting. Not sure it will escape unscathed.
Reference: Is your graduating general surgery resident qualified to take trauma call? A 15-year appraisal of the changes in general surgery education for trauma. AAST 2016, Paper 39.
Trauma centers seem to be popping up all over the US. Many metropolitan area have literally scores of centers at various levels. And yet there are swaths across this country where you won’t find a single Level I, and only a few Level IIs. In most states, there is little guidance from the designating authority regarding whether a new trauma center is feasible or even needed. The American College of Surgeons (ACS) has given little guidance over the years, except for a white paper in 2015 that essentially said that it is up to the designating authorities to determine this.
Last August, the ACS organized a consensus conference to try to develop an objective method for figuring out when enough is enough. There was unanimous support for developing a tool that would encourage designation to meet the needs of the trauma patient, not the financial needs of a hospital or hospital system. This Needs-Based Assessment of Trauma Systems (NBATS) tool looks at 6 factors, some of which take a little calculation to complete. A point score is arrived at that predicts the additional number of trauma centers that may be needed. Currently, this tool is in draft form and is in the process of being optimized.
Click here to download the draft document.
So far, this has been a theoretical exercise. But a group at Stanford decided to test the tool on the entire state of California. They used a variety of data sources to compile the needed numbers, and did some complicated spatial analyses of transport times to accurately calculate NBATS scores.
Here are the factoids:
Bottom line: There is already literature showing that adding additional (too many?) trauma centers to a region can have a negative impact on patient volumes and resource availability at Level I and II centers. This tool may allow state trauma systems to more objectively determine exactly where more centers are justified, enabling them to rise above the usual political battles (maybe). Unfortunately, the tool does not take available surgical resources in the region (trauma surgeons, neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons) into account, or provide guidance on which levels of new centers should be developed. But it’s a good start to help solve a sticky problem.
Reference: ACS needs based assessment of trauma systems (NBATS) tool: California example. AAST 2016, Paper #24.
Unneeded use of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) air transport is a problem around the world. This scarce and valuable resource tends to be over-utilized, resulting in unnecessary costs to patients and the health care system in general. Unfortunately, good and objective criteria for HEMS transport have been hard to come by.
A group at the University of Pittsburgh published a study earlier this year, developing an objective scoring system based on a huge dataset from the National Trauma Databank. They used a portion of the data to develop a model, and the remainder to test it. They developed the AMPT, which identified patients that showed a survival benefit with helicopter transport:
For this AAST abstract, they sought to validate the scoring system using an entirely different database, the Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation registry. They used 14 years of data, and reviewed nearly a quarter million records. Once again, the authors were looking at in-hospital survival.
Here are the factoids:
Bottom line: It looks like the AMPT score is a good predictor of improved survival for patients transported by air. But wait, it’s not that cut and dried. These statistics are based on populations; they cannot predict exactly which individual patient will benefit. What about those patients who actually died? Perhaps if they had gotten to the hospital a little faster, they would have done better? This is certainly a nice new tool to use in the decision-making process, but it can’t be the only one.
References:
Different hospitals have different arrangements for taking care of critically injured patients. All Level I or II trauma centers have at least a mixed med/surg ICU, with most level I centers having a dedicated surgical unit. A few have specific trauma or neuro-critical care ICUs.
In general, severely injured trauma patients do better when taken care of by trauma teams who have sufficient experience (volume). What about patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI)? Does the experience and volume of patients receiving care in the ICU make a difference?
A group of 12 trauma centers with varying ICU arrangements pooled their outcome data to see if the type of ICU makes a difference. All patients admitted with GCS<14 with CT evidence of TBI were evaluated if they were admitted to an ICU.
Here are the factoids:
Bottom line: This is a fascinating study, but it is giving us just a glimpse of the complete picture. What’s the difference between a med/surg ICU vs a trauma ICU. How much head trauma does a neuro ICU have to see? What kind of nurses work in them? What types of critical care physicians?
These questions are not answered in the abstract. And they may not be answered during the presentation at the meeting. But they are extremely important, and must be resolved in the next iteration of this study. Hopefully, there will be one!
Reference: Neuro-, trauma-, or med/surg-ICU: does it matter where polytrauma patients with TBI are admitted? Secondary analysis of the AAST-MITC decompressive craniectomy study. AAST 2016, paper #21.