Der Unfallchirurg
-
A 59-year-old patient with right-sided chest pains after a fall from a height of 3 m was referred to hospital by an emergency physician. The chest x-rays showed fractures of the third and seventh ribs on the right side. Inpatient analgesic therapy was initiated and after 3 days the patient was discharged from hospital for further outpatient treatment. ⋯ Thus, an earlier diagnosis of the apparently stable vertebral fractures would not have changed the conservative therapy approach. The decision of the arbitration board differed from the expert opinion as additional imaging techniques of the spine should have been initially performed due to the mechanism of injury. Although no irreversible damage to health resulted an earlier targeted treatment could have reduced the overall length of therapy.
-
At the beginning of this century the German Trauma Society (DGU) became extensively active with an initiative on quality promotion, development of quality assurance and transparency regarding treatment of the severely injured. A white book on "Medical care of the severely injured" was published, focusing on the requirements on structural quality and especially procedural quality. The impact of the white book was immense and a trauma network with approved trauma centers, structured and graded for their individual trauma care performance, was developed. ⋯ The AUC is a full service provider and management organization in compliance with the statutes of the DGU. According to these statutes the business operations of the AUC also cover projects for numerous groups of patients, projects for the joint society the German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma (DGOU) as well as other medical institutions. This article describes the success stories of the trauma network (TraumaNetzwerk DGU®), the TraumaRegister DGU®, the telecooperation platform TKmed®, the new and fast-growing orthogeriatric center initiative (AltersTraumaZentrum DGU®) and the division of medical education and training, e.g. advanced trauma life support (ATLS®) and other training programs including the innovative interpersonal competence (IC) course.