• Courtney H Meyer, Mari Freedberg, Janelle Tanghal, Christine Castater, Crystal T Nguyen, Randi N Smith, Jason D Sciarretta, and Jonathan Nguyen.
• Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA; Grady Health System, Atlanta, GA, USA; Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
• Injury. 2024 Sep 5: 111860111860.

IntroductionThe Pain, Inspiratory effort, Cough score (PIC) has been developed and widely adopted to guide clinical prognostication for patients with chest wall injury. To date, the efficacy, accuracy, and safety of a PIC based triage system has not been validated. Therefore, this study sought to evaluate the use of a modified-PIC score to triage and down-grade trauma patients with chest wall injury at a single institution.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted at a large, Level I Trauma Center on patients with chest wall injuries admitted between 1/1/2018-10/31/20,222. On 12/1/2020, our institution implemented a modified-PIC triage tool including the PIC score, age, and severity of chest wall injury. The Pre-PIC (1/1/2018-11/20/2020) and Post-PIC (1/1/2021-10/31/2022) groups were composed based on admission date and outcomes between the two were compared.Results2,627 patients comprised the Pre-PIC group and 2,212 patients comprised Post-PIC. The groups didn't differ significantly in demographics or mechanisms of injury except for COVID status. Post-intervention, a greater proportion of patients were triaged to the intermediate care unit instead of the ICU or floor. There were no significant differences in hospital length of stay (LOS), ventilator days, unplanned ICU admission, or mortality in Pre-PIC vs Post-PIC. ICU LOS, rates of ARDS, and cardiac arrest with return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) were significantly lower in Post-PIC. Multivariable models demonstrated significantly lower ARDS rates and ICU free days. ICU LOS trended towards significance as well.ConclusionsThis is the largest study, to date, evaluating the impact of a modified-PIC triage system on clinical outcomes. The results suggest a modified-PIC triage system may lead to decreased ICU days, ARDS rates, and rates of cardiac arrest w/ ROSC, potentially improving hospital resource allocation. Further prospective and multi-center studies are needed to validate our understanding on the impact of a chest wall scoring system on triage and outcomes.Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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