• The American surgeon · Jan 1998

    Comparative Study

    Interhospital versus direct scene transfer of major trauma patients in a rural trauma system.

    • J S Young, D Bassam, G A Cephas, W J Brady, K Butler, and M Pomphrey.
    • University of Virginia Trauma Center, Department of Surgery, Charlottesville 22906-0005, USA.
    • Am Surg. 1998 Jan 1;64(1):88-91; discussion 91-2.

    AbstractThe purpose of organized trauma systems is to ensure the expeditious transfer of seriously injured patients to the facility best equipped to care for their injuries. Patients are referred to our trauma center, either by ambulance or helicopter, directly from the scene or through interhospital transfer. We examined the difference in outcome between those patients sent directly to the trauma center versus those seen at other hospitals and subsequently referred to the trauma center. Our hypothesis was that a delay at the referring hospital is detrimental to patient outcome. Adult trauma patients with Injury Severity Scores > 15, treated over 16 months from July 1, 1994, to October 31, 1995, were studied. Patients who survived 24 hours experienced significantly shorter intensive care unit (14 vs 10 days; P < 0.05) and hospital (21 vs 16 days; P < 0.05) lengths of stay when taken directly to the trauma center. In addition, there were significantly fewer deaths in patients with a probability of survival > 0.5 and a slightly lower overall mortality in those patients who survived at least 1 day. This study demonstrates that patients with major trauma taken directly to the trauma center had shorter hospital and intensive care unit stays and lower mortality. The study supports the paradigm that, when possible, major trauma patients should be sent to trauma centers directly from the injury scene.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.