trauma activation and stratification

[Powers, Robin]

The initial respondents on our trauma resuscitation team are the Trauma
Surgeon (all of who are Board Certified Critical Care as well as
Surgery), an anesthesiologist, 2 or 3 trauma resuscitation RN's, a
respiratory therapist, a lab tech and 2 radiology techs, a unit
secretary (to put in orders) and pastoral care. The ED physician is
available in the department and assists the trauma surgeon as needed,
but the trauma surgeon in charge and directs the care. Additionally,
neurosurgery is required to respond within 30 minutes (if needed). We
have a complete on-call list of surgical and medical sub-specialties
(different from the ED on-call list) who are consulted as needed. Hope
this clarifies things for you a bit.
Robin :-)

ROBIN STORY POWERS, RNC, BSN
Nsg. Care Coordinator - Trauma Education
St. Mary's Medical Center
901 45th Street
West Palm Beach, FL 33407
phone-(561)882-6355
fax-(561)881-0945
robin.powers at tenethealth.com
 
The information in this communication is confidential and is directed
only to those intended recipients.  Please do not forward this
communication without my permission.  If you have received this
communication in error, please notify me immediately and delete/destroy
this communication.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jago Miloguz [mailto:japrak at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 11:50 AM
To: Trauma &amp, Critical Care mailing list
Subject: Re: trauma activation and stratification

could you be kind to say who exacly is a part of your hospital's trauma
team, besides nurses?what is then role of emergency medicine phyicians,
becouse it is after all their department. l'm not saying that incapable
staff should treat the patient, but just that EM docs should be engaged
in
treatment, and even play very significant role in hole process, at least
while the patient is on their department. not all trauma patients are
just trauma patients,and they might be having a coronary artery disease,
whose acute onset caused trauma in the first place. and also airway
managment and other non-surgical measures that politraumatized patient
needs.l'm just saying that there's more to treating trauma then just
operating.
ante


2006/10/3, Powers, Robin <Robin.Powers at tenethealth.com>:
>
> WE are a Level II Trauma Center, but function as a Level I (We are a
> community hospital and our board certified critical care/general
trauma
> surgeons and OR team are in-house 24/7).
> The trauma alerts and the level of trauma severity (stratification) is
> called by our EMS in the field. They make the determination of
priority
> (1, 2, or 3; 1 being the most acutely injured [usually CPR imminent or
> in progress], 2 being unstable VS, severe penetrating injury, etc, and
3
> being the most common encode priority). Of course we occasionally get
> "drive-up's" in which case the ED staff calls the trauma alert.
> Our entire trauma resuscitation team responds to the resuscitation
area
> for any and all trauma alerts. The trauma alert page to the in-house
> trauma resuscitation team is activated ~ 5 minutes prior to the
arrival
> of the patient.
> Our med-com is in our ED, and when the field EMS notifies our ED via
> med-com that a trauma alert is incoming, the ED staff takes the
initial
> information and, in turn, notifies the trauma resuscitation nurse(s),
> who immediately report to the ED/resus room to prepare for the
patient's
> arrival. The resus nurses, in turn, notify the switchboard to page out
> the "trauma alert", by digital/audio beepers to all resuscitation team
> members and also overhead. The page identifies only the number of
> patients arriving, whether they are pediatric or adult patients
> (different team members respond to pediatric trauma alerts) and
whether
> the patient(s) are arriving by ground or air (security has to block
> traffic for air arrivals). There is no indication of the severity
> (stratification) of the trauma alert paged out, since all team members
> respond to all paged trauma alerts, regardless of severity.
> Hope this makes sense. I didn't realize how confused it sounds until I
> started typing it, but it works very well for us. We are a 476-bed
> community hospital and we see approximately 1200 - 1400 trauma alerts
> per year. Additionally, we are a regional trauma referral center and a
> regional pediatric trauma referral center, and we receive
approximately
> 300 - 500 transfers per year. When these patients arrive, they are
> greeted by the trauma resuscitation nurses who in turn notify the
> in-house trauma surgeon who comes down and assesses the patient. The
> transfers usually do not require/receive full trauma resuscitation
team
> activation.
>
>
>
> ROBIN STORY POWERS, RNC, BSN
> Nsg. Care Coordinator - Trauma Education
> St. Mary's Medical Center
> 901 45th Street
> West Palm Beach, FL 33407
> phone-(561)882-6355
> fax-(561)881-0945
> robin.powers at tenethealth.com
>
> The information in this communication is confidential and is directed
> only to those intended recipients.  Please do not forward this
> communication without my permission.  If you have received this
> communication in error, please notify me immediately and
delete/destroy
> this communication.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Stryker RN MS CNS [mailto:stryker.rn at myfastmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 6:24 PM
> To: Trauma &amp Critical Care mailing list
> Subject: trauma activation and stratification
>
>
> I wanted to know what other trauma centers do when they get
> radio/tele/phone calls for trauma and they take first report.
>
>
>
> I have worked in one hospital where the nurse taking report from the
> paramedics would classify the trauma based on criteria of badness, and
> then it would be activated and paged out.  We had three levels, the
> first based purely on mechanism (MVC with rollover, Ped vs. auto, GSW
to
> extremity), the second was mechanism and/or worrisome vital signs (GSW
> to chest, Fall > than 20 feet, HR > 100, GCS < 13 etc.), and the third
> was very bad vitals (BP < 90, GCS < 8, HR > 120).
>
>
>
> I now work in a hospital which does not stratify the traumas and the
> trauma surgeons want a detailed report passed on to them.  Does anyone
> else do it this way, or do your nurses stratify and then activate
based
> on criteria, before trauma hears about it?  Does anyone else have
> experience with it both ways, or worked to change from one to the
other
> and what was your experience?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> John Stryker
> --
> John Stryker
> please reply to:
> nursestryker at yahoo.com
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> trauma-list : TRAUMA.ORG
> To change your settings or unsubscribe visit:
> http://www.trauma.org/traumalist.html
>