Evaluating blunt abdominal trauma with sonography: a cost analysis.

Ultrasonography (US) is becoming increasingly utilized in the United States for the evaluation of blunt abdominal trauma (BAT). The objective of this study was to assess the cost impact of utilizing US in the evaluation of patients with BAT in a major trauma center. All patients sustaining BAT during a 6-month period before US was used at our institution (Jan-Jun 1993) were compared to BAT patients from a recent period in which US has been utilized (Jan-Jun 1995). The numbers of US, computed tomography (CT), and diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL) were tabulated for each group. Financial cost for each of these procedures as determined by our finance department were as follows: US $96, CT $494, DPL $137. These numbers are representative of actual hospital expenditures exclusive of physician fees as calculated in 1994 U.S. dollars. Cost analysis was performed with t test and chi squared test, and significance was defined as P < 0.05. There were 890 BAT admissions in the 1993 study period and 1033 admissions in the 1995 study period. During the 1993 period, 642 procedures were performed on the 890 patients to evaluate the abdomen: 0 US, 466 CT, and 176 DPL (see table) [table: see text]. This compares to 801 procedures on the 1,033 patients in 1995: 552 US, 228 CT, and 21 DPL. Total cost was $254,316 for the 1993 group and $168,501 for the 1995 group. Extrapolated to a 1-year period, a significant (P < 0.05) cost savings of $171,630 would be realized. Cost per patient evaluated was significantly reduced from $285.75 in 1993 to $163.12 in 1995 (P < 0.05). This represents a 43 per cent reduction in per patient expenditure for evaluating the abdomen. By effectively utilizing ultrasonography in the evaluation of patients with blunt abdominal trauma, a significant cost savings can be realized. This effect results chiefly from an eight-fold reduction in the use of DPL, and a two-fold reduction in the use of CT.

Prospective randomized trial of two wound management strategies for dirty abdominal wounds.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the optimal method of wound closure for dirty abdominal wounds. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: The rate of wound infection for dirty abdominal wounds is approximately 40%, but the optimal method of wound closure remains controversial. Three randomized studies comparing delayed primary closure (DPC) with primary closure (PC) have not conclusively shown any advantage of one method over the other in terms of wound infection. METHODS: Fifty-one patients with dirty abdominal wounds related to perforated appendicitis, other perforated viscus, traumatic injuries more than 4 hours old, or intraabdominal abscesses were enrolled. Patients were stratified by cause (appendicitis vs. all other causes) and prospectively randomized to one of two wound management strategies: E/DPC (wound packed with saline-soaked gauze, evaluated 3 days after surgery for closure the next day if appropriate) or PC. In the E/DPC group, wounds that were not pristine when examined on postoperative day 3 were not closed and daily dressing changes were instituted. Wounds were considered infected if purulence discharged from the wound, or possibly infected if signs of inflammation or a serous discharge developed. RESULTS: Two patients were withdrawn because they died less than 72 hours after surgery. The wound infection rate was greater in the PC group than in the E/DPC group. Lengths of hospital stay and hospital charges were similar between the two groups. CONCLUSION: A strategy of DPC for appropriate dirty abdominal wounds 4 days after surgery produced a decreased wound infection rate compared with PC without increasing the length of stay or cost.

Pilot evaluation of hypnotic medication during acute traumatic stress response.

Early intervention aimed at secondary prevention is a high priority for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research. Disrupted sleep may have a role in the initiation and maintenance of PTSD. Three of the participants were recruited from a surgical trauma service, and one had sought treatment in a psychiatric setting. All were within 1-3 weeks of trauma exposure and had acute PTSD symptoms that included disturbed sleep. Temazepam, a benzodiazepine hypnotic, was administered for 5 nights, tapered for 2 nights, and then discontinued. Evaluations 1-week after the medication had been discontinued revealed improved sleep and reduced PTSD severity. These observations suggest an approach that may be clinically useful and a need for more systematic trials.

Personal watercraft crash injuries: an emerging problem.

BACKGROUND: The increased popularity of personal watercraft (PWC) has resulted in an increase in PWC-related injuries. In an effort to better understand the problem, a retrospective review of 37 victims of such injuries seen at a Level I trauma center and fatalities examined by the medical examiner were analyzed. RESULTS: Fourteen percent of the victims were passengers, two of whom were struck from behind, resulting in severe injuries. Twelve patients died of their injuries. For six victims, the cause of death was drowning; only one of these victims was wearing a personal flotation device. Two patients sustained transected aortas, 20% had brain injuries, 20% had spinal fractures, and 48% had skeletal and skull fractures. Abdominal organ injuries were present in only 13.5% of the victims, but they were significant, with liver, spleen, and kidney lacerations and aortic and renal artery injuries. CONCLUSION: In this population of victims of PWC crashes meeting preestablished trauma criteria or on-scene deaths, injuries were significant. Many of the drowning deaths may have been prevented with the use of personal flotation devices. The potential for serious intra-abdominal injury must be recognized and dealt with appropriately.

Spinal cord injuries in adolescents after gunshot wounds: an increasing phenomenon in urban North America.

While much attention is focused on firearm fatalities, the purpose of this study was to determine the expense of acute medical care and the rehabilitation experience of surviving adolescent patients in the USA with spinal cord injury secondary to gunshot wounds. We analyzed a cohort of 19 patients, 18 of whom survived 12 months after spinal cord injury. The need for primary medical care related to the injury, current work and scholastic status, and satisfaction with the quality of rehabilitation were determined. Ten were not involved in any type of academic or meaningful activity, five had returned to school, three were undergoing rehabilitation, and one patient died. Major complications were present in 14 of the 18 patients. Thus, despite a high survival rate after spinal cord injury in this USA population, considerable long-term disability persists, and survivors report a low level of satisfaction with life.

The need for aggressive nutritional intervention in the injured patient: the development of a predictive model.

Early nutritional intervention has been advocated in trauma patients. We have developed a model to identify those patients who will most benefit from the invasive and costly measures that are required to provide injured patients with early enteral feedings. Four hundred forty-two patients admitted to a level I trauma center during a 2-month period were evaluated using 21 clinical variables. Time to tolerance of a regular diet was used as the dependent variable in a step-wise regression, and then the selected variables were used to build a classification and regression tree to predict tolerance of a regular diet within 5 days. Our findings demonstrate that intensive care unit disposition, Injury Severity Score, Abdominal Trauma Index, and the need for early surgical intervention are important predictors regarding the need for early nutritional intervention. When the model was applied to the study population, it had a sensitivity of 83%, a specificity of 84%, and an accuracy of 84%.

Penetrating trauma and emergency surgery in patients with AIDS.

BACKGROUND: Several recent publications have suggested that emergency surgery in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is associated with extremely high morbidity and mortality. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We reviewed the records of 21 patients with AIDS at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center in Miami, Florida, who underwent 24 emergency operations after sustaining penetrating trauma RESULTS: Nineteen patients (90%) presented with gunshot wounds and 2 (10%) presented with stab wounds. Two patients underwent multiple surgical procedures to control hemorrhage from a complex liver injury and to drain a retained hemothorax, respectively. After surgery, patients were managed according to standard protocols, the same as those for non-AIDS patients. Wound infection was present in 4 patients (19%), and occurred only in patients with < 100 CD4+ cells/microL. Fifty-seven percent of patients had no prior knowledge of having AIDS or being seropositive for the human immunodeficiency virus. One patient died after surgery and 18 patients (86%) were still alive 6 months after discharge. CONCLUSIONS: As the AIDS epidemic grows, general surgeons will be treating an increasing number of these patients. A low morbidity and mortality can be obtained with standard surgical care and techniques. Complications are not uncommon and should be treated as in any other surgical patient, unless it is a terminal condition or that posture runs against the patient's stated views or advance directives.

Nutritional management of the head and neck cancer patient.

Approximately one third of patients with advanced cancer of the head and neck are severely malnourished. Another one third of patients suffer from mild malnutrition. Adequate nutritional support given before cancer therapy will reduce therapy-related complications in severely malnourished patients. Patients who are less severely malnourished should receive definitive cancer therapy promptly with concurrent concern for nutritional support. Advantages of nutritional support are that patients feel better, have a higher tolerance to therapy with fewer complications, and achieve a higher response rate to therapy. The disadvantages to such a program are modest but real. This therapy is expensive and it is hard to prove its long-term benefit. Attempting treatment may be frustrating in poorly motivated patients. Appropriate delivery of nutritional support in selected patients has been determined as highly rewarding to the physician.

Enteral nutrition with simultaneous gastric decompression in critically ill patients.

OBJECTIVE: Early enteral nutrition is an important adjunct in the care of critically ill patients. A double-lumen gastrostomy tube with a duodenal extension has been reported to enable early enteral feeding with simultaneous gastroduodenal decompression. We tested the ability of this device to achieve these goals in critically ill patients. DESIGN: Noncomparative, descriptive case series. SETTING: Surgical intensive care unit in a university hospital. PATIENTS: Fifteen consecutive critically ill patients, who, at the time of laparotomy, were assessed likely to need long-term nutritional support and gastric decompression, underwent tube placement. Mean age was 47 +/- 21 yrs. Mean Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE II) and Therapeutic Intervention Scores were 15 +/- 7.3 (SD) and 29 +/- 10.2, respectively, and the mean Injury Severity Score of 11 trauma patients in the group was 27 +/- 7.4. INTERVENTIONS: Correct tube positioning was verified by radiograph or endoscopy. METHODS: Caloric and protein requirements, nutritional parameters, and problems encountered with the device were recorded. The correlation between the volume of feeding port input and suction port output was noted, and this correlation was considered significant if r2 was > or = .5. RESULTS: Only three (20%) of 15 patients reached full enteral nutritional support via the enteral route. None of these patients achieved this level of nutritional support within the first postoperative week. In 67% of the patients, large quantities of enteral feeding solution appeared in the gastroduodenal suction port effluent. When feeding port input was plotted against effluent volume, a correlation coefficient of > .71 (r2 = > or = .5) was found in 40% of the patients. Other complications included: a) excessive gastroduodenal drainage requiring fluid/electrolyte replacement in eight (53.3%) patients; and b) skin ulceration at the tube entrance site in seven (46.7%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: These data do not support the use of this device for early enteral feeding and simultaneous gastric decompression in critically ill patients.

A prospective evaluation of field categorization of trauma patients.

We prospectively evaluated the efficacy of comprehensive field triage in 8,891 trauma patients transported to trauma centers in Dade County, Florida, over a 1-year period ending in September 1986. There were 5,685 males (63.9%) and 3,206 females (36.1%) with a mean age of 32.4 +/- 18.4 years. The overall accuracy for identifying severe injury for the entire group was 30.2%. A Trauma Score less than or equal to 12 was the most accurate predictor of severe injury. Of 669 patients in this group, 617 (92.2%) sustained severe injury and 361 died (54.0%). High-speed (greater than 40 m.p.h.) motor vehicle accident was the most common reason for triage; however, of 2,277 in this group 201 patients (9.0%) had severe injury and four patients (0.2%) died. Only nine deaths (0.9%) occurred in 1,004 patients with penetrating trauma whose Trauma Scores were greater than 12. Of the 8,891 patients 4,791 (53.9%) had moderate to severe injury. The overtriage rate was therefore 46.1% using this field categorization system.

Diagnosis related groups and the critically injured.

We reviewed the records of 59 patients with trauma treated in the surgical intensive care unit in 1983 to attempt to identify a diagnosis related group (DRG) modifier in order to eliminate major losses which would be incurred in caring for the critically injured. There were 22 females and 37 males. Payment based upon a DRG system would have resulted in hospital losses for the following subgroups: surgical treatment (n = 44) $1,348,009; no operation (n = 15) $125,085; length of stay (LOS) of more than ten days (n = 35) $1,124,778; LOS equal to or less than ten days (n = 24) $348,316; nonsurvivors plus LOS equal to or less than ten days plus operation (n = 12) $269,778, and survivor plus LOS greater than ten days plus operation (n = 29) $1,022,284. No useful modifier was identified for these subgroups using regression analysis. We believe that some immediate DRG modifier, based upon the total hospital charges (or costs if known) relationship to total DRG payments, should be created until further refinements in payment systems evolve. If some correction is not attempted, the considerable disadvantage which would result to participating hospitals may result in curtailing availability of effective long term intensive care unit trauma care at a time when the public is becoming aware of trauma systems and the improvement in survival seems to be a realizable goal.

Diagnosis-related groups and the salvagable trauma patient in the intensive care unit.

We reviewed 59 patients with trauma treated in the surgical intensive care unit (SICU) in 1983 comparing hospital charges with payments calculated from diagnosis-related groups (DRG). There were 37 male and 22 female patients with a mean age of 38.3 years. The mechanism of injury was blunt trauma in 42 and penetrating injury in 17 patients. The mean injury severity score (ISS) was 30.7 +/- 13.8 (mean plus or minus standard deviation). The duration of SICU care was 5.4 +/- 6.1 days. Over-all, 18 patients died. For the entire group, payment based upon a DRG system would have resulted in an over-all loss of $1,468,094.00 or $24,883.00 dollars per patient. Calculated DRG payments would have accounted for only 32.3 per cent of the total hospital charges. Calculated losses for 41 survivors would have been $1,098,431.00 dollars. Length of stay had a significant relationship to the calculated DRG payment (r = 0.69, p less than 0.001) but account for only 48 per cent of the variance. DRG only accounted for 26 per cent of the variance in charges despite a statistically significant relationship (r = 0.51, p less than 0.001). No statistically significant relationship was found between ISS and hospital charge by linear regression (r = 0.20, p greater than 0.01) or between ISS and DRG payment (r = 0.14, p less than 0.4). DRG as presently formulated would only pay one-third of total hospital charges for patients with trauma requiring SICU care. Present DRG payment schedules reflect neither the elements of care currently expended nor the modifiers necessary to adjust for acuity and severity. The ISS score would not be a useful modifier to correct DRG payment in this high cost group.