Trauma resuscitation time

Documenting the timing and organisation of trauma resuscitation can be utilised to assess performance standards, and to ensure a high quality of trauma resuscitation procedures. Since there is no European literature available on trauma resuscitation time (TRT) in the emergency room, the aim of this descriptive study is to evaluate TRT in the Netherlands. The introduction of an ATLS®-trained prehospital mobile medical team (MMT) in the Nijmegen area initiated the on-site advanced trauma life-support for the prehospital management of trauma patients. We studied TRT in two groups of patients, one with, the other without on-site care by a MMT. In the emergency room the use of videotape recording was chosen to document trauma resuscitation (22 actions) and TRT. A specially flow-chart was used to define the TRT-procedures. We studied 43 patients; 27 without MMT treatment and 16 with MMT treatment. The activities were divided into the ABCDE's of trauma care. Significant more patients of the MMT group were intubated before arrival in the hospital (12/16 (75%) versus 2/27 (2%), P<0.05). Eleven definitive airway management interventions (intubation) and one thoracic drainage in the non-MMT group were demanded by the protocol, but not performed before arrival in the hospital. Sixteen out of 22 actions that were documented were carried out at an earlier stage in the MMT group. There was no significant difference between the resuscitation times; in both groups the recorded median time was approximately 43min. This prospective analysis demonstrates the timing of resuscitation procedures in a resuscitation room and provides some insight into the timing of ATLS® initial assessment.

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