• Salvi Prat, Laura Muñoz-Ortiz, Salvador Navarro, Maylin Koo, Xavier Jiménez-Fábrega, Olga Martínez-Cruz, and Mireia Espallargues.
• Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, España. Coordinador Traumcat (Registro de Trauma Grave de Cataluña).
• Emergencias. 2016 Oct 1; 28 (5): 333-339.

ObjectivesProcess indicators have been widely used to monitor the way trauma care is provided. We aimed to analyze whether data from a hospital's severe trauma register could facilitate the evaluation of aspects of the initial management of severe injuries.Material And MethodsObservational, retrospective population-based study. A working group of experts selected a set of trauma care process indicators relevant to some aspects of initial care, diagnosis, and treatment of severely injured patients. Four of the indicators referred to prehospital care and 5 to hospital care. We calculated the observed and expected compliance rates for all the indicators.ResultsA total of 1526 cases (44.4%) were analyzed for 2013; 1908 (55.6%) were analyzed for 2014. We were able to evaluate 3 of the 4 prehospital process indicators: endotracheal intubation in patients with a score of 􀀀 8 on the Glasgow coma scale (GCS) (84% compliance), venous access established before hospital arrival (83.4%), and placement of a neck collar to immobilize the cervical spine (72.7%). Compliance for the hospital-phase indicators were as follows: performance of a computed tomography scan of the head within 60 minutes in cases with a GCS of 􀀀 13 (5.3% compliance, craniotomy in candidate patients within 2 hours of diagnosis (65%), diagnostic examination for abdominal injuries within 60 minutes in patients with systolic blood pressure 􀀀 90 mm Hg (89.3%), and therapeutic laparotomy or angiography within 4 hours of abdominal injury in candidate patients with systolic blood pressure 􀀀 90 mm Hg (51.7%). Compliance was 69.9% for the last process indicator: surgical treatment of open fractures within 8 hours of an accident.ConclusionOur findings show that a hospital trauma register provides data about care process indicators that can allow us to monitor the quality of care of severely injured patients.

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