Injury
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Observational Study
The relationship between patient volume and mortality in NSW major trauma service hospitals.
Conventional wisdom is that Major Trauma Services (MTS) treating larger volumes of severe trauma patients will have better outcomes than lower volume centres, but recent studies from Europe have questioned this relationship. We aimed to determine if there is a relationship between patient volume and outcome in New South Wales (NSW) MTS hospitals. ⋯ There was no mortality difference between high and low volume MTS demonstrated. Length of hospital stay significantly increased with increasing volume however.
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Trauma is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in children. Many traumatic injuries are preventable and trauma centers play a major role in directing population-level injury prevention strategies. Given the constraint of finite resources, calculating priorities for injury prevention at an institutional level is essential. The Injury Prevention and Priority Score (IPPS) is a widely applicable tool that is more robust than simple prevalence rankings and considers injury severity - an important factor when developing prevention strategies. We developed an adapted-IPPS methodology to define our local injury prevention priorities using our institution's patient population. ⋯ IV.
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Geriatric patients discharged from the emergency department (ED) after an injury are at risk for adverse outcomes. Older patients are at a higher risk for sensory impairments and cognitive problems which can make comprehension of discharge instructions more difficult. Moreover, geriatric patients often have limited skills with or access to alternative sources of information, such as hospital web pages or phone applications, which could put them at a higher risk of undertreatment. Implementing telephone follow-up after discharge presents a potential solution to enhance information transfer and address problems related to the injury. ⋯ Telephone follow-up is a feasible intervention that may be able to enhance older patients' comprehension of discharge instructions and help identify new problems after discharge. During the follow-up call, the majority of patients received additional advice, indicating a potential demand for this intervention. The main limitation was that not all eligible patients were approached or did not want to participate in the intervention. Future studies should investigate whether telephone follow-up can effectively reduce adverse events and improve the quality of life for these patients.
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It has been suggested that the Lethal Triad be modified to include hypocalcemia, coined as the Lethal Diamond. Hypocalcemia in trauma has been attributed to multiple mechanisms, but new evidence suggests that traumatic injury may result in the development of hypoCa independent of blood transfusion. We hypothesize that hypocalcemia is associated with increased blood product requirements and mortality. ⋯ This study shows the association of hypoCa and traumatic injury. Severe hypoCa was associated with increased odds of early and overall mortality and increased blood product requirements. These results support the need for future prospective trials assessing the role of hypocalcemia in trauma.