Tag Archives: trauma activation

General

Trauma Activation Patients Staying Too Long In Your ED?

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One of the long-held beliefs in trauma care relates to the so-called “golden hour.” Patients who receive definitive care promptly do better, we are told. In most trauma centers, the bulk of this early care takes place in the emergency department. However, for a variety of reasons, throughput in the ED can be slow. Could extended periods of time spent in the ED after patient arrival have an impact on survival?

Wake Forest looked at their experience with nearly 4,000 trauma activation patients who were not taken to the OR immediately and who stayed in the ED for up to 5 hours. They looked at the impact of ED dwell time on in-hospital mortality, length of stay and ventilator days.

Overall mortality was 7%, and the average time in the ED was 3 hours and 15 minutes. The investigators set a reasonable but arbitrary threshold of 2 hours to try to get trauma activation patients out of the ED. When they looked at their numbers, they found that mortality increased (7.8% vs 4.3%) and that hospital and ICU lengths of stay were longer in the longer ED stay group. Hospital mortality increased with each hour spent in the ED, and 8.3% of patients staying between 4 and 5 hours dying. ED length of stay was an independent predictor for mortality even after correcting for ISS, RTS and age. The most common cause of death was late complications from infection.

Why is this happening? Patients staying longer in the ED between 2 and 5 hours were more badly injured but not more physiologically abnormal. This suggests that diagnostic studies or consultations were being performed. The authors speculated that the knowledge, experience and protocols used in the inpatient trauma unit were not in place in the ED, contributing to this effect.

Bottom line: This is an interesting retrospective study. It reflects the experience of only one hospital and the results could reflect specific issues found only at Wake Forest. However, shorter ED times are generally better for other reasons as well (throughput, patient satisfaction, etc). I would encourage all trauma centers to examine the flow and delivery of care for major trauma patients in the ED and to attempt to streamline those processes so the patients can move on to the inpatient trauma areas or ICU as efficiently as possible.

Reference: Emergency department length of stay is an independent predictor of hospital mortality in trauma activation patients. J Trauma 70(6):1317-1325, 2011.

General

Using Mechanism of Injury In Your Trauma Activation Criteria

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a set of Guidelines for Field Triage two years ago. Click here to download them. They list 4 tiers of activation criteria to help prehospital providers triage patients appropriately to trauma centers. 

Tier 1, which are physiologic criteria, and Tier 2 (anatomic criteria) are very accurate in predicting injury serious enough to require trauma team activation. Tier 3 contains mechanism criteria, and many centers who use these verbatim in their activation criteria end up with a fair amount of overtriage. Some centers even see a significant number of patients who meet Tier 3 criteria go home from the ED!

The Yale department of Emergency Medicine looked at intrusion into vehicle criteria (more than 12" near an occupant, more than 18" anywhere on the vehicle) to see if they are a valid predictor for admission or trauma center transport. It was a retrospective review of EMS transports to the Yale ED or to one satellite site. 

Unfortunately, the number of vehicles that met intrusion criteria (48) was small compared to the number without significant intrusion (560). This makes the data a little less convincing than it may have been. The likelihood that intrusion would require trauma center admission (Positive Predictive Value) was only 26%. The likelihood that trauma center resources would be utilized (for issues like death, ICU stay, operation, spinal injury or intracranial hemorrhage) was only 13%. The authors recommend that the CDC guidelines be tweaked based on this data.

Bottom line: I think the numbers are far too small to convince the CDC to change their guidelines. But I would urge each trauma center that uses the intrusion criteria for activation to carefully study how many of those patients have minor injuries or go home from the emergency department. They may find that they can rely on other more accurate criteria and decrease their overtriage rate at the same time.

Reference: Motor vehicle intrusion alone does not predict trauma center admission or use of trauma center resources. Prehospital Emerg Care 15:203-207, 2011.

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Trauma Team Qualifications

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What kind of credentialing should the members of your trauma team have?

The most important concept in answering this question is based purely on patient care. What shows that your personnel can provide the type of care that their position on the team warrants?

For all physicians, ATLS is a must. Verification agencies, including the American College of Surgeons, require that most providers to have passed the course once. I recommend a current ATLS provider certificate for all physicians, including residents. The course is updated every four years, which means that every time a provider certificate expires, new course content has been added. A current certificate keeps their knowledge up to date.

The airway physician should be either credentialed or have generous experience in managing the airway. This ensures that the intubation process is routine and safe when necessary.

Most, if not all physicians should be also current in ACLS, since major trauma patients may arrest prior to or after arrival at the hospital.

Nurses involved in trauma resuscitations should have additional credentialing such as TNCC. They should also be current in ACLS, and many hospital have added critical care experience and ongoing training requirements related to trauma.

For pediatric trauma programs, a basic pediatric resuscitation course such as PALS or APLS is mandatory. All physicians and nurses taking care of critically injured children should be current so they can provide the best care possible to them.

A piece of paper does not necessarily prove competence. The final part of the qualification process involves your trauma Performance Improvement program. All providers are scrutinized by the PI process, and if any stand out as having too many adverse events to their name, they should not be allowed to participate on the team.

The bottom line: Your trauma team members need to be great at what they do, with appropriate paperwork to prove it and PI monitoring to back it up. They need to be able to easily pass the “family member” test: would I want this person to take care of my (daughter) (husband) (grandmother) etc!

General

Teaching the Trauma Team

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Teaching hospitals have extra responsibilities when constructing their trauma activation team. They are typically charged with educating trainees from a variety of disciplines, including residents, medical students, and students from other disciplines (EMT, PA, NP). The activation process must not only provide rapid and high quality trauma care, it must also teach these students how to provide that care.

Residents can be integrated into the typical physician roles on the team: airway and primary examiner. To integrate more trainees, these roles can be split further. For example, the examiner’s role can be split into a primary examiner and a secondary examiner with separate, lesser responsibilities. PAs and NPs can be integrated into these roles as well.

One of the most important “additions” to the team that allows education of senior level residents is the Team Leader. This role allows the trainee to learn how to direct the overall resuscitation and allows them to practice making management decisions on the fly. Typically, the Team Leader does not actually touch the patient, allowing the other examining physicians to do this and learn their specific roles. Each role can be assigned to an appropriate level resident, so that they move to higher levels as they progress through their training program.

Here is a template for a trauma team that allows four trainees (yellow balloons) to participate. One faculty members supervises all of them.

At our Trauma Center, we have these four trainees plus another Emergency Medicine resident who performs the FAST exam, if indicated. Two faculty members participate, one trauma surgeon and one Emergency Medicine faculty. Our total team size is 12, so it must be well-coordinated in order to avoid chaos.

Medical and paramedic students are usually confined to the periphery to take notes (H&P) or just observe.

Please leave your comments describing the composition of your team and what makes it run well.

Tomorrow: qualifications of your trauma team personnel

General

Who’s On Your Trauma Activation Team?

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Yesterday’s video highlighted members of the trauma team at a medium size teaching hospital. Today, I will discuss who actually needs to be on the team.

The decisions leading to the composition of your trauma activation team are complex ones. The key is to look at your needs during a typical trauma resuscitation, and look at the resources available within the ED and the hospital as a whole.

The trauma resuscitation team can consist of as few as 4 to as many as 15 or more people! The first item to consider is who is available to go to a trauma activation? If your ED staff is small, the team will be small, or you will have to draw personnel from other areas of the hospital.

The absolute minimum personnel are:

  • 1 Physician
  • 1 Nurse
  • 1 Scribe
  • 1 Assistant (can be physician, nurse, or other)

Using the minimum contingent will force the use of ATLS the way it is classically taught, with the physician sequentially going through the entire process. Additional physicians and nurses allow overlapping portions of the evaluation and treatment and will also speed up the resuscitation process.

An ideal team for a non-teaching hospital is:

  • 2 Physicians
  • 2 Nurses
  • 1 Scribe
  • 2 Assistants

This allows for the physicians and nurses to split their responsibilities (airway, exam, IV access, monitoring) and assures adequate help with patient safety, evaluation and restraint.

Additional personnel can be added from outside the ED to provide a better interface with other hospital services. Examples include:

  • OR representative – communicates with the OR charge nurse to enable rapid access to an OR if needed
  • Lab representative – interfaces with blood bank to provide access to blood products
  • ED nurse – acts as an interface between the resuscitation room and services in the rest of the ED (supplies, calls to consultants, etc.)
  • Anesthesiologist or CRNA – to provide support of the difficult airway
  • ICU nurse – can provide additional nursing support or take other roles
  • Ultrasound tech – may perform FAST if the resuscitation physicians do not have this skill
  • Pediatric intensivist / pediatrician – assists with management of small children

Tomorrow: trauma teams in the teaching hospital