J Trauma
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To evaluate the safety and benefit of delayed repair of blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI) in trauma patients with multiple injuries and to assess the financial impact of delayed repair. ⋯ The management of trauma patients with multiple injuries requires prioritization of injuries so that the outcomes from these injuries can be optimized. Although delayed aortic repair was safely practiced in this series, there was not an obvious outcome benefit to delayed repair. The patients undergoing late repair required increased attention to hemodynamics, and there was a trend toward increased length of stay. In addition, analysis of the costs associated with delayed repair demonstrated a twofold increase in the direct costs for delayed repair compared with early repair.
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The Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), developed by the Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine is the most widely used anatomic injury severity scale in the world (Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. The Abbreviated Injury Scale; 1985 and 1990 revisions. Des Plaines, IL: Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine). However, different user groups have modified the AIS system to fit their needs, and these modifications prevent ready comparison and trending of data collected in these systems in the United States and throughout the world. The United States currently has five AIS-based severity systems and two AIS-based impairment systems in use, with additional revisions forthcoming. Other modified AIS systems are known to be in use in the United Kingdom and Japan. The data collected in these systems cannot be accurately combined or compared without re-coding or the use of complex "mapping" methodologies. Furthermore, the expanding use of data linked from multiple databases to answer complex medical, engineering, or policy issues emphasizes the need for coordination between severity and other injury systems. Linkage of state-wide motor vehicle crash data with data from hospital injury classification systems, mortality files, trauma registry, and national crash databases brings into immediate focus the lack of well defined relationships between the severity coding systems and these other widely used injury systems (Mango N, Garthe E. SAE Congress, February, 1998; Johnson, S, Walker, J. NHTSA Technical Report. DOT HS 808 338, Washington, DC: NHTSA; January, 1996). With the expanding use of linked data in state and national policy decisions, it is vital that consistent standards for injury descriptions, severities, and impairments be available for clinical, engineering, and policy users. ⋯ The authors believe that a "unified" injury system is a necessary and crucial advance from the currently fragmented injury system situation. Unified data can provide a pool of consistent international data to support a variety of important research and prevention and treatment efforts and is essential to satisfy the global needs of the medical and engineering communities.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Prediction of outcome in intensive care unit trauma patients: a multicenter study of Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE), Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS), and a 24-hour intensive care unit (ICU) point system.
To conduct a multicenter study to validate the accuracy of the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II system, APACHE III system, Trauma and Injury Severity Score (TRISS) methodology, and a 24-hour intensive care unit (ICU) point system for prediction of mortality in ICU trauma patient admissions. ⋯ For the overall estimation of aggregate ICU mortality, the APACHE III system was the most reliable; however, performance was most accurate for subsets of patients with head trauma. The 24-hour ICU point system also demonstrated acceptable overall performance with improved performance for patients with head trauma. Overall, APACHE II and TRISS did not meet acceptable thresholds of performance. When estimating ICU mortality for subsets of patients without head trauma, none of these systems had an acceptable level of performance. Further multicenter studies aimed at developing better outcome prediction models for patients without head injuries are warranted, which would allow trauma care providers to set uniform standards for judging institutional performance.
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Comparative Study
Analysis of preventable pediatric trauma deaths and inappropriate trauma care in Montana.
To determine the rates of preventable mortality and inappropriate care, as well as the nature of treatment errors associated with pediatric traumatic deaths occurring in a rural state. ⋯ Preventable mortality from traumatic injuries in children in a rural state appears to be low, and lower than that reported for adult trauma victims in the same state. A preponderance of these preventable deaths occur in the subgroup of children less than or equal to 14 years if age. Inappropriate trauma care in children occurs frequently, particularly in the ED phase of care, and is primarily associated with the management of the airway and chest injuries. Education of ED primary care providers in basic principles of stabilization and initial treatment of the injured child 14 years old or younger may be the most effective method of reducing preventable trauma deaths in the rural setting.