Timing of Trauma Team Involvement and the Impact on the Length of Stay and Time to Definitive Care in the Emergency Department: A Retrospective Administrative Data and Chart Review

Timing of Trauma Team Involvement

Abstract

Background: For patients sustaining major trauma, decreasing time to definitive care remains a primary goal. Specialized trauma team involvement is essential for coordinating the emergency department care of complex major trauma patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate if the timing of trauma team involvement impacts length of stay and time to definitive care in the emergency department.

Methods: This is a single-centre retrospective medical record review, including patients meeting Quebec pre-hospital triage criteria for major trauma from May 15, 2018 to December 31, 2020. We assessed time from patient arrival until departure from the resuscitation room, time to CT scan, time to disposition, and overall length of emergency department stay. Patients were grouped according to the timing of trauma team activation (TTA) as (1) pre-hospital notification, (2) on arrival in the emergency department, (3) receiving a trauma consult only, or (4) no trauma team involvement. Mean times and standard deviations were calculated, and group differences were assessed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the independent sample Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: We identified 371 patients meeting our inclusion criteria; there were no differences between groups in mean time spent in the resuscitation room based on the timing of trauma team involvement (45-51 minutes, p=0.422). A trauma team activation with pre-hospital notification was associated with a statistically significant shorter time to CT scan (62-81 minutes, p=0.010), time to disposition (6:37-13:41, p<0.001), and total emergency department length of stay (9:22-23:16 hours: minutes, p<0.001). 

Conclusion: Appropriate trauma team activation improves performance indicators used to evaluate the quality of care in the emergency department. This research suggests that pre-hospital trauma team activation should be considered the standard of care for all patients meeting pre-hospital field triage criteria for major trauma.

           Keywords: trauma, triage, pre-hospital, trauma team activation, trauma quality indicators